"This year our station picked many red-themed dramas. The selection principle is the drama should reflect the historical changes about the New China from the angle of an ordinary person, thus drawing a common audience closer," said Zhang Xiao, editor-in-chief of the Beijing TV Station.

Zhang said dramas with a wide span of historical periods were specially preferred and most TV series broadcast recently were almost like historical and cultural record books.

Peng Jixiang, vice president of the Art College of the Peking University, said, "The popularity of the red dramas is very closely related to the country's social and economic development."

Peng said as the material needs were largely met, now young Chinese start to pursue more spiritual fulfillment in search of strong mental power.

According to the survey, 74 percent of the respondents thought the patriotic spirits conveyed through these dramas would never be out of date and 59.1 percent said "the passion for revolution is in accordance with young people's hardworking spirits nowadays."

The reminiscence is not limited to common people. In a recent blockbuster that recounted the founding of the New China, about 200 cinematic figures joined free of charge, including action star Jet Li and veteran director Chen Kaige.

In this film called "Jian Guo Da Ye," or "The Founding of a Republic," actress Zhang Ziyi was given a small but special role as a representative of grassroots women Party members who explained to Chairman Mao Zedong why she preferred the five-star red flag as the national ensign.

A record total of 1,450 copies of the film have been issued in domestic cinemas and the box office hit 15 million yuan (US$ about 2.2 million) nationwide on its first day of screening.

In addition to the entertainment industry, China Guardian, one of the country's largest art auction firms, also see rich profits in "red."

For this autumn, the company will stage a red-themed artwork auction in November, including more than 20 paintings which were created during 1949 and 1976 and reflected the revolutionary period and the founding of the New China.

With bright colors and realistic paintings, most of these artworks have purposive compositions that make leaders and heroic figures stand out and concentrate on positive themes such as happiness, harmony and freedom.

An oil painting titled "Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan" (1968) was sold for 6.05 million yuan (US$ 886 thousand) in 1995, which marked red-themed art's official entry into the mainland auction market.

In 2007, an oil painting titled "Eulogy of the Yellow River" by Chen Yifei, one of China's most acclaimed painters, was sold for a staggering 40.32 million yuan (US$ 5.9 million), setting a record in mainland oil painting auction market.

The work is a heroic portrait of a Chinese soldier standing beside the Yellow River.

Meng Luxin, a senior manager of the oil painting department of the China Guardian, said, "The painting methods of these works seem to be really far away from us and were mostly given up by contemporary artists. However, 'red' is one of the heritages from that special period and reflect the social situations and people's inner world back then."

"The value of the 'red' is irreplaceable," Meng added.

(Xinhua News Agency September 28, 2009)