Conquering China

If you are not having success as musician in your own country, where do you go to try your luck? The United States is normally first choice. But Swedish pop singer Johan Jonason, director of this documentary, chose a different course, setting out for the Chinese megalopolis Shanghai.
Against a colourful backdrop of bars, hotels and clubs - sometimes chic and sometimes dismal -, musicians, DJs and producers give Jonason useful advice. Conquering China has been compared in Sweden to a classic film on the same subject, Lost in Translation. In Conquering China, Jonason, whose work has previously screened at IFFR, not only tells a tale of music but also, using a large number of impressive shots of the city, shows what the other side of the world looks like now. With roles for French synthesizer god Jean-Michel Jarre and Chinese star DJ Ben Huang.