Actress Yao Chen stars in My Long March, which narrates the story from a child soldier's angle.

Even if the changes work, war films are not likely to be as popular as they used to be, August First's Liu says.

"In peacetime, the army's mission has changed from attacking, to defending the country. So the angle and the subject of today's war films also require modification," Liu says.

Liu says war films should be broadly defined and points to two films on which he was a screenwriter, namely Stands Still, the Last Great Wall (2009), about a group of soldiers rescuing victims of an earthquake; and Shenzhou11 (2011), about astronauts carrying out a manned space docking mission.

"Both the two films I wrote bear the core imprint of war movies," Liu says.

"The enemy now becomes the natural disaster and modern soldiers deal with space warfare. To complete a mission nowadays is like winning a war in the past. It requires collective efforts and it values people's courage, wisdom and fortitude."

Commenting on the studio's latest film about the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection's anti-corruption campaign, Liu says the conception of the "war film" will continue to evolve.

The studio is also involved in film dubbing and produced the Chinese soundtrack for such blockbusters as Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbor.

The studio is expected to conduct more dubbing missions for foreign war films in the future as the annual quota for foreign films to China has increased from 20 to 34, Liu says.

By Sun Li