A stil shot from "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe". [Photo/Mtime]

Before shooting, Lu was told the visual effects he wanted in the movie would cost $100 million in Hollywood.

With a limited budget of around 90 million yuan, Lu had to split the visual effect project and let Chinese post-production teams do most of the work to lower costs.

However, Zhang believed budget will not be a problem for homegrown films much longer.

The Chinese film market now provides huge profits for filmmakers and investors, luring and enabling them to be bold in investing in special effect films, said Zhang.

"Bigger investment in production guarantees better visual effects in products. That's why recent domestic films have become a success in cinemas," said Zhang.

In addition to increasing investment, Lu believes building a team of professionals in China is crucial for improving the visual effect of homegrown movies.

It requires training domestic talent and attracting foreign professionals at the same time, he said.

"Monster Hunt" is a good example. The blockbuster's director Xu Chengyi recruited a post-production team whose members were nearly all Chinese.

With his rich experience good example. Theof working as an animator and director for Dreamworks Animation for more than 20 years, Xu, born in Hong Kong and best known for co-directing "Shrek the Third", has led a domestic team to huge commercial success that broke numerous box office records.

To compete with Hollywood in visual effects and eventually match it one day, the homegrown film industry needs to involve more talent both at home and abroad to boost competition, said Zhang.

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