The first film screenings in China took place in August 1896, and appear to have consisted mainly of French films. The impresarios were Westerners from the Shanghai concession . In 1905, the first Chinese film production took place. He filmed the Peking opera “Jingjun Mountain” in Beijing. The first feature film based on a screenplay for a movie was “Nanfu Nanatsuma,” made in Shanghai in 1913. It is a tragicomedy about a man and a woman forced into marriage by their parents, and it is interesting that this first work has an anti-feudal theme. Since then, this has become one of the most important themes in Chinese film history. Shanghai became the center of film production, and at that time American films were actively shown here, and Chinese filmmakers came to be strongly influenced by it. In the 1920s, Meisei, Tenichi, and other major companies were established, and production was active. At that time, popular among the general public were the love stories of talented young people called Enou Kocho school, and sword fight films called Bukyo Eiga .
See 30’s Progressive
In 1931, Japan caused the so-called Manchurian Incident in the northeastern region of China, stripping the three northeastern provinces from China and turning them into a colony called Manchukuo. In the following year, he fought against the Chinese army in the Shanghai Incident. This act of aggression could not help but awaken the Chinese film industry. Left-wing intellectuals, including the scriptwriter Kaen, actively worked for film companies such as Myojo and Renka. Movies will be made with themes such as Chun Phu Kao (1896-1966) directed ” Spring Silkworms ” (1933), which depicted the process of farming villages being shaken by capitalist market principles, and Zhang Shichuan, which appealed for the independence of working women. Oil Powder Market (1933) directed by Zhang Si Chuan (1889-1953), and Sun Yu (1900-1990) directed The Road, in which young people participate in the construction of roads to fight against Japan . (1934) and other works of social realism appear one after another. However, these were not created lightly. The Kuomintang government, which was intent on avoiding armed conflict with Japan and believed that a confrontation with the Communist Party of China came before anti-Japan, mercilessly censored and suppressed any obvious anti-Japanese expressions and left-wing themes. for he showered them with “Fishing Light Song” (1934) directed by Cai Chusheng (1906-1968), “Wandering Lamb” (1936), directed by Shi Dongshan Youth Progression (1937), Ma Xu Weipang’s “Midnight Singing” (1937), Shen Xiling (1904-1940)’s ” Cross Street ” (1937) and others are major works of this artistic golden age of Chinese cinema.
See the Japanese Occupation movie
From 1937 to 1945, Japan waged an all-out war of aggression against China. Shanghai, the center of the Chinese film industry, was occupied by the Japanese military, and some filmmakers went to Hankou, Chongqing, and even Yan’an. to make an anti-Japanese film. But many remain in Shanghai. Since the studio was located in a Western concession, it was not directly under the control of the Japanese military until the start of the Pacific War at the end of 1941, so allegorical anti-Japanese films were made. Mulan Jugun (1939), directed by Boku Banso, is a girl’s opera-style work in which a Tang dynasty Chinese woman fights invaders from the north. bottom. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, studios in Shanghai came under the control of Chunghwa Films, led by Japanese Nagamasa Kawakita (1903-1981), and most of them were neither poison nor medicine. However, since he did not interfere in the content of Chinese films, he made it a poignant allegorical expression of ethnic humiliation, similar to Ma Xu Weibang’s “Quhai Tang” (1943). A masterpiece was also born.
From 1937 to 1945, Manchuria (now the three northeastern provinces) was a Japanese colony . Chinese audiences did not welcome these films.
See second golden age
The years from the victory of the Anti-Japanese War to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China were the second golden age of Chinese cinema. Various films that severely criticized the corruption of the Kuomintang government after returning from Chongqing, “Ichijiang Chun Shui Mang Dong Ryu (Spring River, Flowing to the East)” directed by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli (1911-1969). (1947) and Chung Kun-ri’s Crow and Sparrow (1949), while Soko’s (1916-2004) bourgeois sophisticated comedy There is “Faith Banzai” (1947), and “Ogi no haru” (1948) directed by Fei Mu (1906-1951) is a subtle romantic psychological drama reminiscent of the poetic realism films of the 1930s. ).
After the Establishment of the People’s Republic of China
In 1949, the revolution succeeded and the People’s Republic of China was established. Cinema will soon be nationalized and become a powerful propaganda vehicle for socialist construction. Studios that Japan once built in Changchun and Beijing will be revived as Chinese studios. White-Haired Woman (1950) co-directed by Wang Bin (1912-1960) and Shuihua (1916-1995) and a series of simple revolutionary propaganda films, Considered to be important works that inspire the morale for construction, they were introduced internationally and politically, but they are rather a reminder to foreigners that Chinese films once had a high artistic standard. The result was misleading. Artistically, director Suihua’s “Lin House” (1959), Xie Tie-liu (1925-) director’s “Early Spring February” (1963), Xie Jin ‘s ” Stage Sisters (1965) is a masterpiece of socialist realism , and this period can be called the third golden age. However, during the Cultural Revolution that lasted for about 10 years from around 1966, everything from the progressives of the 1930s to the socialist masterpieces of this third golden age was attacked as bourgeois, and film production was criticized. Most of the films were canceled, and many of the filmmakers were forced to raise pigs in farming villages, and some even committed suicide.
After the Cultural Revolution ended, film production revived, and since the beginning of the 1980s, the quality of film production has improved remarkably. People have reached middle age (1982), co-directed by Hu and Wang Qiming, and The Bridge Over Shanghai (1983), directed by Bai Shen.
The mid-1980s marked a major turning point for Chinese cinema. First of all, it became known to the world when “Yellow Earth” directed by Chen Kaige , which was made in 1984, attracted attention at the Hong Kong Film Festival. This was followed in 1985 by Huang Jianxin (1954- )’s The Black Gun Incident, Yang Xueshu’s The Fields and Mountains, Chen Kaige’s The Great Parade, and Tian Chuanchuan’s The In 1987, Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum appeared and became known to the world.
Many of them were boys during the Cultural Revolution, studied cinema after the Cultural Revolution ended, and finally made their debut during this period. While previous generations could only portray the times of hardship in a sentimental way, and could not easily get out of the range of faithfully and realistically portraying the given political theme, they were the Cultural Revolution. He depicted with fearless audacity the realities he experienced when he was dispatched to work in rural areas, and satirized it with unprecedented bitterness. In addition, he learned the techniques of foreign films that he was able to see at film colleges and other places, and developed a free-spirited imagination that broke away from flat realism.
In China, they are the first generation in the early days, the second generation that created the golden age of the 1930s, the third generation during the revolution and founding of the nation, and the fourth generation that emerged in socialist China before the Cultural Revolution. It was called the fifth generation of directors following such. Stimulated by the remarkable performance of the fifth generation, the fourth generation was also inspired, with Wu Tianming (1939-2014) writing “The Old Well” and Xie Jin writing “Fuyouchin”. Both were built in 1987.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government gradually moved forward with liberalization policies, and the young generation of filmmakers enthusiastically took on the policy. The second Tiananmen Incident in Beijing was another major turning point. Fearing that the movement for further liberalization would lead to the denial of socialism, the Chinese government began to tighten its ideology . Films that pursued bold expressions were often banned.
Chen Kaige’s Farewell to My Love/Haou Becki (1993) is a philosophical narrative from before and during World War II to the present through a chronicle of love and farewell by homosexual Peking Opera actors. It is a melodramatic masterpiece depicting the turbulent history of China. Tian Zhangzhuang’s The Blue Kite (1993) boldly depicts the ideological pressures of the time of the Cultural Revolution through the fate of an ordinary family in Beijing. During this period, excellent Chinese films became popular in the global market, and foreign capital, including those from Hong Kong and Taiwan, began to enter the market. Films made by foreign capital can now be screened freely in foreign countries even if they cannot be screened in Japan due to censorship. As a result, none of the films were screened domestically, but they received high acclaim internationally. Also, around this time, the spread of television came to put a great deal of pressure on the film industry. Nevertheless, the momentum of Chinese films, which had once blossomed, continued.
Zhang Yimou’s “Autumn Chrysanthemum Story” (1992), Sun Zhou (1954-)’s “Scent of the Heart”, Ning Ying (1959-)’s “Beijing Good Days”, 1993 He Ping (1957- )’s Fireworks of Sorrow and Li Shao-Hong (1955- )’s Beni-Shiroi both depicted the lives of the Chinese people with a rich feeling. Excellent work.
Zhang Yimou’s 1999’s Looking for Her and 2000’s The Way My First Love Came are fine examples of simple people in remote areas. Jiang Wen’s 1999 The Ghost Comes Out is a tragedy between a Japanese soldier and a Chinese peasant in a farming village during the Japanese occupation. In 1999, Huo Jianqi (1958- ) wrote Postman in the Mountains, a work depicting the hardships of a postman who delivers mail to mountain villages on foot. Works that talk about joys and sorrows have a particularly bitter glow.
What stands out in the 2000s is the increase in blockbuster works that seem to put national prestige on the line, and on the other hand, the number of independent works created with foreign capital without applying to the government. The former is represented by Zhang Yimou’s 2002 period drama entertainment work “Hero”, and the latter is represented by Wang Bing’s (1967- ) song without words in 2010. This is a reenactment of the tragic reality of the anti-rightist struggle, which is considered taboo in China. In terms of content, it is a completely Chinese film, but it is not screened in China because it is capitalized in Hong Kong or foreign countries. This trend has been conspicuous since the 1990s, and Jia Zhang Ke (1970- ), who is considered to be the leader, has won many awards at foreign film festivals. I have come to welcome you. His representative work is Choukou Elegy (2006), which depicts a town submerged by a gorge dam .
Some directors, who often get into trouble with government censorship and have been ordered to stop production for a while, stick to their work. Tian Zhuozhong’s Spring Confusion (2002) and Jiang Wen’s Farewell to the Vengeful Wolves (2010) are representative examples of this, demonstrating the high standard of contemporary Chinese cinema.
