Movies - Cinema of China

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	Movies - Cinema of China

The history of Chinese-language cinema has three separate threads of development: Cinema of Hong Kong, Cinema of China, and Cinema of Taiwan. The cinema of Mainland China after 1949 has grown up somewhat suppressed by the Communist regime until recent times, although certain films with political overtones are still routinely censored or banned in China itself. Most of these films though are allowed to be shown abroad in commercially distributed theaters or in film festivals.

The Beginnings: Shanghai as the Center

Motion pictures were introduced to China in 1896. The first recorded screening of a motion picture in China occurred in Shanghai on August 11, 1896, as an "act" on a variety bill. The first Chinese film, a recording of the Beijing Opera, The Battle of Dingjunshan, was made in November 1905. For the next decade the production companies were mainly foreign-owned, and the domestic film industry did not start in earnest until 1916, centering around Shanghai, a thriving entrepot center and the largest city in the Far East then.

During the 1920s film technicians from the United States trained Chinese technicians in Shanghai, and American influence continued to be felt there for the next two decades. The first truly important Chinese films were produced starting from the 1930s, when the "progressive" or "left-wing" films were made, like Cheng Bugao's Spring Silkworms (1933), Sun Yu's The Big Road (1935), and Wu Yonggang's The Goddess (1934). During this time the Nationalists and the Communists struggled for power and control over the major studios, and their influence can be seen in the ensuing films produced. The post-1930 era is called the first "golden period" of Chinese cinema, where several talented directors, mainly leftist, worked. The period also produced the first big Chinese movie stars, namely Hu Die, Ruan Lingyu, Zhou Xuan, and Jin Yan. Other major films of the period include Song of the Fishermen (1934), Crossroads (1937), and Street Angel (1937).

The Japanese invasion of China, in particular their occupation of Shanghai, ended this golden run in Chinese cinema. All production companies except Xinhua closed shop, and many of the filmmakers fled Shanghai, relocating in Hong Kong, Communist- and Nationalist-controlled regions, and elsewhere.

The Second Golden Age: the late 1940s, and the Communist Era

The film industry continued to develop after 1945. A major Chinese production house, the Lianhua Film Company, re-established itself in Shanghai after the war and once again became the basis for leftist directors. Many showed the disillusionment with the oppressive rule of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Party. Myriads of Lights (1948), Crows and Sparrows (1949), San Mao (1949), and, most importantly, The Spring River Flows East (1947) are the classics produced during this period. The Spring River Flows East, a three-hour-long two-parter which depicts the struggles of ordinary Chinese folks during the Sino-Japanese war, was immensely popular during its time, making social and political references to the period. The Wenhua Film Company, one of the two important production companies formed by left-leaning film-makers in the city (the other one being Lianhua), also contributed some of the masterpieces of this era. Springtime in a Small Town or Spring in a Small Town (1948), a film made by Shanghainese director Fei Mu prior to the revolution, is often regarded by Chinese film critics as the greatest Chinese film of all time, as well as being one of the most influential (an acclaimed 2002 remake by one of the Fifth Generation Chinese film maker Tian Zhuangzhuang can also be seen).

With the Communist takeover in 1949, the government saw motion pictures as an important mass production art form and propaganda. The number of movie-viewers increased sharply, from 47 million in 1949 to 415 million in 1959. In the 17 years between the founding of the People's Republic of China and the Cultural Revolution, 603 feature films and 8,342 reels of documentaries and newsreels were produced, sponsored as Communist propaganda by the government. Chinese filmmakers were sent to Moscow to study Soviet filmmaking. In 1956, the Beijing Film Academy was opened. The first wide-screen Chinese film was produced in 1960. Animated_films using a variety of folk arts, such as papercuts, shadow plays, puppetry, and traditional paintings, also were very popular for entertaining and educating children. The thawing of censorship in 1956-7 and the early 1960s led to more indigeneous Chinese films being made which were less reliant on their Soviet counterparts. The most prominent filmmaker of this era is Xie Jin, whose two films in particular, The Red Detachment of Women (1961) and Two Stage Sisters (1965), exemplify the growing expertise China has in the craft of motion pictures.

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