Fifth Generation Chinese Cinema

[Cary Polachek]

Thecinema of China is the filmmaking and film industry of the Chinese mainland under the People's Republic of China, one of three distinct historical threads of Chinese-language cinema together with the cinema of Hong Kong and the cinema of Taiwan. China is the home of the largest movie and drama production complex and film studios in the world, the Oriental Movie Metropolis[5][6] and Hengdian World Studios. In 2012 the country became the second-largest market in the world by box office receipts. In 2016, the gross box office in China was CN45.71 billion (US$6.58 billion). China has also become a major hub of business for Hollywood studios.

In November 2016, China passed a film law banning content deemed harmful to the "dignity, honor and interests" of the People's Republic and encouraging the promotion of "socialist core values", approved by the National People's Congress Standing Committee.[7]

China was one of the earliest countries to be exposed to the medium of film, due to Louis Lumire sending his cameraman to Shanghai a year after inventing cinematography.[9] The first recorded screening of a motion picture in China took place in Shanghai on 11 August 1896 as an "act" on a variety bill.[10] The first Chinese film, a recording of the Peking opera, Dingjun Mountain, was made in November 1905 in Beijing.[11] For the next decade the production companies were mainly foreign-owned, and the domestic film industry was centered on Shanghai, a thriving entrepot and the largest city in the Far East.

After trial and error, China was able to draw inspiration from its own traditional values and began producing martial arts films, with the first being Burning of Red Lotus Temple (1928). Burning of Red Lotus Temple was so successful at the box office, the Star Motion Pictures (Mingxing) production later filmed 18 sequels, marking the beginning of China's esteemed martial arts films.[9] Many imitators followed, including U. Lien (Youlian) Studio's Red Heroine (1929), which is still extant.[14] It was during this period that some of the more important production companies first came into being, notably Mingxing and the Shaw brothers' Tianyi ("Unique"). Mingxing, founded by Zheng Zhengqiu and Zhang Shichuan in 1922, initially focused on comic shorts, including the oldest surviving complete Chinese film, Laborer's Love (1922).[15][16][17] This soon shifted, however, to feature-length films and family dramas including Orphan Rescues Grandfather (1923).[15] Meanwhile, Tianyi shifted their model towards folklore dramas and also pushed into foreign markets; their film White Snake (1926)[a] proved a typical example of their success in the Chinese communities of Southeast Asia.[15] In 1931, the first Chinese sound film Sing-Song Girl Red Peony was made, the product of a cooperation between the Mingxing Film Company's image production and Path Frres's sound technology. However, the sound was disc-recorded, which was then played in the theater in-sync with the action on the screen. The first sound-on-film talkie made in China was either Spring on Stage (歌場春色) by Tianyi, or Clear Sky After Storm by Great China Studio and Jinan Studio.[19] Musical films, such as Song at Midnight (1937)[20] and Street Angels (1937),[21] starring Zhou Xuan,[22] became one of the most popular film genres in China.[23]

The first truly important Chinese films were produced beginning in the 1930s with the advent of the "progressive" or "left-wing" movement, like Cheng Bugao's Spring Silkworms (1933),[25] Wu Yonggang's The Goddess (1934),[26] and Sun Yu's The Great Road, also known as The Big Road (1934).[27] These films were noted for their emphasis on class struggle and external threats (i.e. Japanese aggression), as well as on their focus on common people, such as a family of silk farmers in Spring Silkworms and a prostitute in The Goddess.[11] In part due to the success of these kinds of films, this post-1930 era is now often referred to as the first "golden period" of Chinese cinema.[11] The Leftist cinematic movement often revolved around the Western-influenced Shanghai, where filmmakers portrayed the struggling lower class of an overpopulated city.[28]

Three production companies dominated the market in the early to mid-1930s: the newly formed Lianhua ("United China"),[b] the older and larger Mingxing and Tianyi.[29] Both Mingxing and Lianhua leaned left (Lianhua's management perhaps more so),[11] while Tianyi continued to make less socially conscious fare.

The Shanghai film industry, though severely curtailed, did not stop however, thus leading to the "Solitary Island" period (also known as the "Sole Island" or "Orphan Island"), with Shanghai's foreign concessions serving as an "island" of production in the "sea" of Japanese-occupied territory. It was during this period that artists and directors who remained in the city had to walk a fine line between staying true to their leftist and nationalist beliefs and Japanese pressures. Director Bu Wancang's Hua Mu Lan, also known as Mulan Joins the Army (1939),[35] with its story of a young Chinese peasant fighting against a foreign invasion, was a particularly good example of Shanghai's continued film-production in the midst of war.[15][36] This period ended when Japan declared war on the Western allies on 7 December 1941; the solitary island was finally engulfed by the sea of the Japanese occupation. With the Shanghai industry firmly in Japanese control, films like the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere-promoting Eternity (1943) were produced.[15]

The film industry continued to develop after 1945. Production in Shanghai once again resumed as a new crop of studios took the place that Lianhua and Mingxing studios had occupied in the previous decade. In 1945, Cai Chusheng returned to Shanghai to revive the Lianhua name as the "Lianhua Film Society with Shi Dongshan, Meng Junmou, and Zheng Junli."[37] This in turn became Kunlun Studios, which would go on to become one of the most important studios of the era (Kunlun Studios merged with seven other studios to form Shanghai film studio in 1949), putting out the classics The Spring River Flows East (1947),[38] Myriad of Lights (1948), Crows and Sparrows (1949),[39] and Wanderings of Three-Hairs the Orphan, also known as San Mao, The Little Vagabond (1949).[40][41]Many of these films showed the disillusionment with the oppressive rule of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Party and the struggling oppression of nation by war. The Spring River Flows East, a three-hour-long two-parter directed by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli, was a particularly strong success. Its depiction of the struggles of ordinary Chinese during the Second Sino-Japanese war, replete with biting social and political commentary, struck a chord with audiences of the time.

Meanwhile, companies like the Wenhua Film Company ("Culture Films"), moved away from the leftist tradition and explored the evolution and development of other dramatic genres. Wenhua treated postwar problems in universalistic and humanistic ways, avoiding the family narrative and melodramatic formulae. Excellent examples of Wenhua's fare are its first two postwar features, Love Everlasting (Bu liaoqing, 1947)[42] and Fake Bride, Phony Bridegroom (1947).[43] Another memorable Wenhua film is Long Live the Missus (1947),[44] like Love Everlasting with an original screenplay by writer Eileen Chang. Wenhua's romantic drama, Spring in a Small Town (1948),[45] directed by Fei Mu[46] shortly prior to the revolution, is often regarded by Chinese film critics as one of the most important films in the history of Chinese cinema, in 2005, Hong Kong film awards it as the best 100 years of film.[47] Ironically, it was precisely its artistic quality and apparent lack of "political grounding" that led to its labeling by the Communists as rightist or reactionary, and the film was quickly forgotten by those on the mainland following the Communist victory in China in 1949.[48] However, with the China Film Archive's re-opening after the Cultural Revolution, a new print was struck from the original negative, allowing Spring of the Small Town to find a new and admiring audience and to influence an entire new generation of filmmakers. Indeed, an acclaimed remake was made in 2002 by Tian Zhuangzhuang. A Chinese Peking opera film, A Wedding in the Dream (1948), by the same director (Fei Mu), was the first Chinese color film.

The private studios in Shanghai, including Kunming, Wenhua, Guotai, and Datong, were at first encouraged to make new films. They made approximately 47 films during the next two years but soon ran into trouble, owing to the furor over the Kunlun-produced drama The Life of Wu Xun (1950), directed by Sun Yu and starring veteran Zhao Dan. In an anonymous article in People's Daily in May 1951, the feature was accused of spreading feudal ideas. After the article was revealed to be penned by Mao Zedong, the film was banned, the Film Steering Committee was formed to "re-educate" the film industry, and the private studios were all incorporated into the state-run Shanghai Film Studio.[50][51]

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 mostly as Communist propaganda by the government.[53] For example, in Guerrilla on the Railroad (铁道游击队), dated 1956, the Chinese Communist Party was depicted as the primary resistance force against the Second Sino-Japanese War.[54] Chinese filmmakers were sent to Moscow to study the Soviet socialist realism style of filmmaking.[52] The Beijing Film Academy was established in 1950 and officially opened in 1956. One important film of this era is This Life of Mine (1950), directed by Shi Hu, which follows an old beggar reflecting on his past life as a policeman working for the various regimes since 1911.[55][56] The first widescreen 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 most famous of these, the classic Havoc in Heaven (two parts, 1961, 4), was made by Wan Laiming of the Wan Brothers and won the Outstanding Film award at the London International Film Festival.

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