There was a time in the late 90s when the golden Beijing Institute of Film class (the first one after the cultural revolution) was producing wonderful art house films that DID get viewership abroad. Sadly, this ended with increasing control of the gov over the film industry, and even the Taiwanese and Honk Kong films that we once enjoyed have disappeared to an industry that is now largely catering to the mainland market.
The future of the chinese film industry is more Warcraft and less "eat, drink man woman" (a Taiwan film) or "farewell my concubine" (I think the latter one was banned in the mainland), there is nothing there for us.
This is empirically false: Crouching Tiger, Ip Man 1-3 were all well-received[1] in the US. I could add anything by Jackie Chan (and for a while Jet Li), but not all if them were Chinese productions.
1. The first had some overt propaganda in the form of a sadistic but inept Japanese occupying officer.
[1]: http://www.globalresearch.ca/lights-camera-covert-action-the...
[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/14/thriller-ridley...
This isn't overt propaganda in the traditional sense, but the effect is the same.