Commentary 1

1929 due to internal disputes over Mingxing’s apparent abuse of power (ZDZ
1996a: 1421).

The importance of Southeast Asia (Nanyang)
Tianyi prospered despite United Sixth’s intervention and the press criticism of
its commercialism (ZDZ 1996a: 88–9). One decisive factor that distinguished
Tianyi from its competitors was its far-sighted venture in Southeast Asian
markets. Often referred to as ‘Nanyang’ (literally, ‘south ocean’), these markets
included colonies along the Pacific Ocean such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur
(Malaysia) and Rangoon or Yangon (Burma) under Britain, Java (Indonesia)
and Bangkok (Thailand) under Holland, Annam (Vietnam) under France,
the Philippines and Honolulu under the US. Around 1926 many theaters in
Southeast Asia had signed contracts with Mingxing and the United Six, but
Tianyi sent Runme (age 25) and Run Run Shaw (age 19) to the region in
order to develop their own network. They traveled to big cities as well as rural
communities and soon convinced a number of distributors and exhibitors to
join their cause (Du 1978: 157–9). Together they managed to exhibit Tianyi
titles to overseas Chinese audiences, over 70 per cent of them merchants, coolies
and plantation or farm workers (ZDZ 1996a: 1408). The popularity of their
accessible films generated a huge demand for Tianyi products. By 1931, Tianyi
managed 139 theaters in Southeast Asia (J. Zhang and Cheng 1995: 948) and
thus commanded a leading edge that would facilitate its expansion to Hong Kong
in the 1930s and restructuring as the all-powerful Shaw Brothers decades later.

Initially, Southeast Asia was intended as an alternative market because of a
limited domestic ownership of theaters, which translated into a lower share of
box-office returns in Shanghai (which averaged above 2,000 yuan per title for
domestic features) and other Chinese regions and forced Chinese studios to seek
additional incomes through the sales of film prints overseas.8 As the Chinese
diaspora welcomed domestic films out of nostalgia for the homeland and nation-
alistic pride, Southeast Asian distributors became regulars in the Shanghai
industry. Yet, no single company dominated the overseas markets at first. As early
as 1924, Mingxing signed a contract with a Singapore theater in an attempt to
discourage the exhibition of films by other Shanghai studios. Starting in 1926,
Tianyi increasingly shipped its films to Taiwan and other Southeast Asian
communities (ZDZ 1996a: 117). According to one estimate, overseas sales of a
quality film could generate 2,400 yuan from Singapore and Malaysia, 1,800 yuan
from Thailand, 2,700 yuan from Indonesia, 800 yuan from Vietnam – a total of
7,700 yuan exclusive of the Philippines and other countries (Du 1988: 129–30).
Although there is a lack of further statistics, it is probable that Southeast
Asia might have become the mainstay or even the ‘exclusive’ market for many
Shanghai companies in the second half of the 1920s.

However, by 1927, higher taxes and stricter censorship in Southeast Asia, as
well as the lower production quality of commercial pictures, combined to reduce

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the Chinese diaspora’s interest in domestic films. This was a fatal blow to the
industry because, even with their intentionally apolitical titles which posed no
ideological challenge to the colonial rule in the region, Shanghai companies
could no longer automatically count on the overseas Chinese’s patriotism for
profits (ZDZ 1996a: 111, 170; Zhu 1998: 65).

The rise of the theater chains: Shanghai,
Beijing and beyond

To restructure the domestic industry, Chen Dabei recommended building
theaters in inland cities so that the Shanghai studios could rely less on Southeast
Asian markets (ZDZ 1996a: 735). However, the problem was that the spread of
cinemas across the nation was a slow process and foreigners who had little inter-
est in domestic pictures controlled most of the theaters in China. According to
one estimate, by the end of 1926 approximately 156 cinemas existed in China,
and foreigners owned a majority of them (S. Cheng et al. 1927: chap. 33). The
number reached 250 in 1930, of which only fifty or sixty showed domestic films
(Zhu 1998: 61).

The city with the largest concentration of cinemas was Shanghai, with thirty-
nine (i.e., 25 per cent of the national total) in 1927. Among Shanghai’s most
celebrated venues were the Carlton (Kaerdeng), Odeon (Aodi’an), Palace
(Zhongyang), Pantheon (Baixing), Peking (Beijing) and Venus (Jinxing)
theaters, as well as those owned by the Ramos Amusement Company and
managed by W.N. Ginsburg, which included the Carter (Kate), Embassy (Xia-
lingpeike), Empire (Enpaiya) and Victoria (Weiduoliya) theaters. Architecturally,
most of these theaters featured European-style (e.g., art deco) exteriors and
interiors. The contemporary photographs of the Odeon and Peking Theaters
displayed interiors similar to that of a grand opera house, with central
chandeliers, spacious balcony and comfortable seats throughout. As proprietor of
the Peking Theater, the Shanghai Amusement Company ran an advertisement in
The China Cinema Year Book 1927, boasting the theater’s pillar-free structure,
dim pathway lighting, effective ventilation and courteous staff.

Significantly, despite the dominant foreign ownership of distribution and
exhibition, Chinese personnel managed many of the Shanghai cinemas. In the
spring of 1926, Zhang Changfu and Zhang Juchuan established the first Chinese
theater chain, Central Movie Company (Zhongyang) in Shanghai. They leased
five theaters in Shanghai and one in Hankou – at the rate of 60,000 yuan a year –
from the millionaire Ramos, who subsequently returned to Spain and concluded
his two decades of pioneering show business in China. Together with Zhang’s
Palace, these theaters specialized in domestic films and were affiliated with
Mingxing, whose distribution offices in Northern, Central and Southern China
were under Zhou Jianyun’s management. As Zhou reported in 1928, with an
investment of 100,000 yuan, Central Movie Company made a profit of over
40,000 yuan in 1927, while the Peking Theater alone made a profit of

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over 60,000 yuan, which means that other theaters had deficits. In January 1928
the Carlton had an income of over 70,000 yuan (S. Li and Hu 1996: 105;
ZDZ 1996a: 724).

In comparison with Shanghai, the capital city Beijing claimed merely fourteen
cinemas in 1926, including the Popular Cinema (Tongsu) and the Star Cinema
(Mingxing). As a rare example of what the Chinese could achieve in early film
exhibition, Luo Mingyou deserves special attention. Born in Hong Kong in
1902, Luo attended the School of Peking University in 1918 and in 1919
started to manage Zhenguang (literally, ‘truth light’), a cinema built on the
location of the old Dangui Teahouse. Zhenguang featured foreign films of
high artistic quality, distributed film plot sheets and projected Chinese subtitles
during the show. Luo’s weekend matinee discounts for students (at 0.1 yuan)
(see Table 2.2, p. 16) made his theater a huge attraction for the young audience.
Unfortunately, a fire destroyed the theater in late 1919.

With the help of his uncle Luo Wengan, who served as the Minister of Justice
in the Beijing government, Luo Mingyou raised enough funds to construct a
new Zhenguang Theater in 1921. It was a modern, three-storied, steel and
cement structure boasting granite pillars and stairways, glass walls, a rooftop
garden and over 800 cushioned seats. Luo reduced disturbance inside the
theater by relocating the service of snacks and drinks to a separate area. The
theater employed a band conducted by a former Russian professor to accompany

Figure 2.4 Hollywood in Shanghai: billboards outside the Peking Theater

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every show and a benshi (screen narrator) to interpret the silent foreign film
to the audience as the story unraveled on screen (ZDZ 1996a: 177–80). As
manager, Luo raised the standards for film exhibition in China and continued to
reject cheap pictures in his programs (Hou 1996: 199–218).

When his business had increased to ten cinemas in Beijing and Tianjin, Luo
established Northern China Film (Huabei) in 1927 and recruited young talents
such as Zhu Shilin, Fei Mu and Shen Fu. Luo’s distribution and exhibition
business prospered, and by 1929 he owned more than thirty cinemas in five
provinces, including those in northeast China (Du 1988: 136–7). In 1929, Luo
decided to invest in production, teaming up with Minxin to film Memories of the
Old Capital (Gudu chunmeng) and Wild Flower (Yecao xianhua), both directed
by Sun Yu in 1930. Luo’s influence reached its peak in the early 1930s with his
Lianhua, but during the 1920s he had proved himself to be a unique player in the
foreign dominated exhibition sector.

In pursuit of a profession: film publications and
film schools

The emergence of film criticism was evident by the mid-1920s, a time when the
total number of film periodicals ranged from thirty to forty titles (Luo et al.
1992: 1: 3). Over the decade the conceptualization of film had shifted from
film as play (hence, shadowplay or photoplay) through film as more than play to
film as art. In 1921 Gu Kenfu argued that the shadowplay is the most ‘realistic’ of
all plays; in 1928 Ouyang Yuqian declared that film is ‘a synthetic art’ and that
‘photoplay’ is only part of ‘motion picture art’ (Luo et al. 1992: 1: 4–5, 99). In
general, critics of the time were more familiar with drama and more willing to
advance the literary and dramatic arts than to explore film as a visual art.

In addition to regular film or entertainment columns in major newspapers,
three groups of early film publications were most noteworthy. First, the promo-
tional magazine issued irregularly by a major studio introduced a particular film
and sometimes included the studio’s policy, filmmakers’ reflections as well as film
criticism. Second, film periodicals, special issues and regular sections of literary
and popular journals carried up-to-date film reviews and articles on domestic and
foreign films. Third, film books contributed directly to the evolving industry
and in many ways anticipated film as a legitimate subject of new knowledge.
Among the major studios publishing numerous promotional magazines during
this period were Great China-Lily, Great Wall, Mingxing and Tianyi, and
filmmakers often participated in criticism.

In addition to magazine articles, a few film books helped establish film as a
legitimate subject of new knowledge in the 1920s. Xu Zhuodai published Film
Studies (Yingxi xue, 1924), the earliest Chinese book on film studies. Drawing on
miscellaneous foreign sources, the book tackles topics ranging from the elements
and types of film to screenwriting, directing, acting, cinematography, art design
and special effects. Hou Yao’s Writing Scripts for Shadowplays (Yingxi juben

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zuofa, 1926) covers a variety of topics on screenwriting, such as the functions,
values and elements of shadowplays, special film terms (printed in English), as
well as dramatic structure and techniques. Of particular importance in Hou’s
book is his list of thirty-two ‘inappropriate’ subjects for shadowplays. They
include violence against women, juvenile delinquency, capital punishment, child
abuse, ugly nude poses, incitement of mutual hatred, violent conflict between
labor and capital, excessive gunshots, rape, prostitution, painful pregnancy and
labor, incest, gambling and smoking (Luo et al. 1992: 1: 55–6). Albeit too
restrictive and impractical, Hou’s list, accompanied by another list of twenty-one
‘appropriate’ subjects, represents an early example of self-censorship by Chinese
filmmakers.9 Another publication, The China Cinema Year Book 1927, was
the first of its kind in China, providing the most comprehensive information
imaginable at the time (S. Cheng et al. 1927).

Indeed, Chinese filmmakers were working hard as they were fully cognizant
of the urgent need to bring out a new generation more knowledgeable about
film. As a result, a crop of film schools came into being in the 1920s, many of
them under major sponsoring studios. Apart from Mingxing’s school founded
in 1922 (ZDZ 1996a: 32), 1924 saw the appearance of three film schools
in Shanghai. China Motion Picture Company (Zhonghua) set up the China Film
School with volunteer instructors who offered classes on acting, cinematography
and screenwriting. Every week students could see two Western films free of
charge at the Isis Theater owned by the studio’s boss, Zeng Huantang. In
nine months, the school brought out stars like Hu Die (ZDZ 1996a: 1604).
The other two schools were the Great China Film School and the Changming
Film Correspondence School founded by Wang Xuchang and Xu Hu. In its
one-year operation, Changming taught students as far away as Japan and the
Philippines, and it published the first Chinese film textbook, which covered
topics ranging from the history, functions, genres and national characteristics
of cinema, to directing, screenwriting and cinematography (Luo et al. 1992:
1: 11–46).

Altogether, fourteen Chinese-owned film schools operated in Shanghai at one
time or another during the 1920s, in addition to three by foreigners (S. Cheng
et al. 1927: chap. 40). These schools functioned principally as training programs
for acting and did not produce famous directors or screenwriters. But at the very
least, they represented early filmmakers’ conscientious attempts to ensure that
Chinese cinema would reach a higher level of professionalism in the near future.

CRITICAL ISSUES: ARTS, ARTISTS AND
ARTISTIC THEOR Y

Before leaving the period of early cinema, we should consider the technical and
artistic aspects of filmmaking and tackle the critical issues related to early ‘artists’
and their conceptions of film. This section also addresses such topics as ‘films of

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theater people’ and ‘shadowplay theory’, which did not surface in the period but
are critical to our understanding of it.

Arts: learning the film basics
As Cheng Bugao recollects, when Zhang Shichuan started directing in the early
1910s, the fixed camera, exaggerated acting and a limited shooting range was the
typical style. Zhang and his contemporaries relied on the 200-foot reel film,
which lasted three minutes and twenty seconds.10 While shooting, the camera-
man had to crank the reel in the motor-less camera at approximately 120 rounds
per minute in order to achieve the speed of sixty feet per minute, and his work
was humorously compared to ‘churning the ice cream’. A faster or slower speed
would result in the distortion of facial expressions or bodily movements on
screen. Before the introduction of the glass-wall studio, the crew used an open-
air tent, and sometimes the painted backgrounds of pavilions and the like would
move with the wind without being noticed by the filmmakers, and would create
funny-looking scenes on screen (ZDZ 1996a: 1577–82).

Yet, such difficulties did not prevent Chinese filmmakers from experimenting
with new film techniques. The Motion Picture Department inserted in Dream
of Immortality (Qingxu meng, dir. Ren Pengnian, 1922; 3 reels) the following
special effects: a broken water jar reappears in one piece, a man walks through
a wall, and an inanimate object moves by itself. Such camera tricks were

Figure 2.5 Chinese filmmaking in the 1920s: fixed cameras and exaggerated acting

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greatly welcomed by the audience (ZDZ 1996a: 1460). By 1924, Mingxing
cinematographer Dong Keyi had figured out how to use double exposure to
shoot an actor playing two roles. In 1926 Dong used miniature models to shoot
the scene of colliding trains in Lonely Orchid. In the late 1920s he designed
special effects, for example flying swordsmen, which further enchanted the
audience. A martial arts film, Four Heroes from the Wang Family (Wangshi sixia,
dir. Shi Dongshan, 1927; 10 reels), was reportedly the first to use a dolly shot in
China (ZDZ 1996a: 1414).

In 1927 Dan Duyu had already experimented with underwater photography in
The Spider Cave. Two years later, Zhang Shichuan and Hong Shen directed six
cameras simultaneously shooting a soccer game on location for A Patriotic Game
(Yijiao ti chuqu, 1929), a sports picture based on a real-life game between a
Chinese team and one consisting of foreign expatriates in Shanghai (S. Li and Hu
1996: 251). In the late 1920s, the public fascination with film techniques was
such that film periodicals published articles explaining camera tricks such as
double exposure, stop motion, matte shot, glass shot, miniature and slow motion
(ZDZ 1996a: 950–71).

A Chinese film aesthetic?
By the end of the 1920s, Zhang Shichuan had developed his style of directing
and typically repeated sequences of frontal, eye-level shots from the long shot
through the medium shot to the close-up (J. Li 1995: 40–1). Such ‘three-step’
presentations foregrounded acting and accustomed the audience to a con-
ventional film language in close proximity to their experience with the Chinese
stage (Hong Kong Arts Centre 1984).

Other artistic features characteristic of early Chinese cinema can be
enumerated here. Influenced by traditional theater, early films did not use lavish
sets and props, and painted backgrounds were usually simple, more symbolic
than realistic. Influenced by traditional art, early films first relied on a single
source of light and then preferred flat lighting to chiaroscuro lighting, paying
more attention to black-and-white contrast than to varied shades and tones that
embodied a three-dimensional or sculptural fullness. Spatial relations were also
based on traditional aesthetics. As if on stage, the main characters usually stood
up front, at or near the center, thus commanding the viewer’s attention, while
supporting characters were grouped around in accordance with their respective
social positions. The preference for characters’ left–right movements rather than
forward–backward ones further enhanced the illusion of watching a stage play.
In contrast to frequent subject movements, camera movements were kept at a
minimum, so techniques such as panning, tilting, tracking and dolly shots were
all rarities at the time (K. Hu 1996).

On the surface, minimal camera movements and monotonous shot sequences
might suggest that early Chinese filmmakers were fearful of film techniques.
However, apart from the technical and technological inadequacies hinted above,

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a more direct cause for such ‘techno-phobia’ was the entrenched preference for
stable spatio-temporal frameworks in traditional Chinese art and theater. As
with the traditional stage, a safe viewing distance – physical as well as psycho-
logical – was always appreciated, so that the spectator was less likely to identify
actively with screen characters than to remain passively as an onlooker of screen
actions.

This does not mean that early Chinese filmmakers were conscientious in
exploring a ‘Chinese’ film aesthetic. As a matter of fact, many ‘Chinese’ practices
resemble what Noël Burch calls a ‘primitive mode of presentation’ or PMR in the
early cinema of the West. Among other unfamiliar structures, the PMR consisted
of ‘a spatial approach combining frontality with non-centered composition and
distant camera placement to create a “primitive externality”; a lack of narrative
coherence, linearity, and closure; and an underdevelopment of character’
(Gunning 1998: 256). To say the least, early Chinese filmmakers’ reliance
on traditional art and theater was perfunctory, superficial and reactive to the
audience’s changing needs (K. Hu 1996: 58).

Artists: ‘films by theater people’
Three features characterize early film artists in China. First, with a few exceptions,
most leading directors and screenwriters were self-taught artists who did not
receive formal training in film. Second, again with some exceptions, most were in
one way or another affiliated with theater or drama of the time. In fact, Zheng
Zhengqiu, Li Minwei, Hong Shen and Hou Yao had already been well-known
drama figures before they embarked on their film careers. Third, except for
studio founders, most artists were highly mobile and often moved between
studios, a practice that would continue in the next two decades.

Appropriately, critics have referred to the products of this early generation as
‘films by theater people’ (xiren dianying). The term first surfaced at a forum
held during the 1983 Hong Kong retrospective of early Chinese cinema. Huang
Jichi used xiren dianying to describe films by Zheng Zhengqiu and others
influenced by the civilized play. In contrast, wenren dianying (films by literature
people) was coined to refer to the leftist artists who emerged first as fiction
writers and playwrights in the 1930s and who emphasized film’s literary quality
(wenxue xing) and developed a new method of realism. A third alternative,
that of yingren dianying (films by film people), was associated with directors
like Sun Yu who received film training at Columbia and Wisconsin but who
worked closely with literature people. Inasmuch as early cinema is concerned,
‘films by theater people’ obviously dominated the scene (Hong Kong Arts
Centre 1984).

As Fei Mu observed in 1935 (ZDZ 1996a: iii), ‘films by theater people’ drew
directly on the civilized play, a new form of non-operatic play that participated
in spreading nationalist sentiments in the years leading to the Republican
Revolution. After 1911, however, the public interest in political issues declined,

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and the civilized play faced a severe downturn. By switching attention away
from the political arena toward the domestic sphere, theater people like Zheng
Zhengqiu quickly revived the civilized play and produced several popular stage
plays in the 1910s (Zhong et al. 1997). Although the latter-day civilized play was
criticized for its abandonment of political intervention and its submission to con-
servative ideologies (J. Cheng et al. 1981: 1: 21–3), as a whole the genre served
an indispensable function by cultivating a staple of audiences for the emergent
shadowplays.

In its own turn, the civilized play drew on traditional Chinese narratives,
including various types of storytelling. Like traditional narratives, both the
civilized play and ‘films by theater people’ are character-driven, focusing on a
complex of relationships and interactions between characters, unraveled in a
unilinear temporal development, marked by convoluted plots and coincidences.
All these are narrative elements traceable to the literati’s genre of ‘romance’
(chuanqi) from the Tang dynasty. It should not be a surprise to see the famous
Tang story of Scholar Zhang and Beauty Yingying finds its cinematic representa-
tion in Romance of the West Chamber. Interestingly, the Chinese emphasis on
convoluted plots and incredible coincidences resembles that of the nineteenth-
century European novel, which came to China via translation in the late Qing
and exerted a considerable impact on butterfly fiction (ZDZ 1996a: 1511–13).
It was only natural that ‘films by theater people’ would benefit from cooperation
with butterfly writers as well (W. Chen 1992: 294).

Shadowplay theory: an indigenous brand?
The shadowplay theory as ‘indigenous’ invention starts with an exegesis of the
term ‘yingxi’. As Gu Kenfu reasoned in the 1920s, ‘since it is called shadow-
play, film ought to treat play as essential and shadow as supplementary; the
priority of play necessitates the conveyance of play by means of shadows’ (J. Li
1995: 40). Writing in 1986, Chen Xihe speculated that the prioritization of
‘play’ (with related elements such as drama, narrative, theme) over ‘shadow’
(image, technique, structure) has consolidated the centrality of the script in the
Chinese conception of film. Indeed, the centrality was systematically formulated
as early as 1926 in Hou Yao’s Writing Scripts for Shadowplays.

As Chen claims, from script to set design, ‘shadowplay’ is saturated with
dramatic elements, and this is a unique artistic phenomenon in early Chinese
cinema. Nevertheless, Chen believes that, as ‘an aesthetic concept’, the shadow-
play has transcended its historical boundary and has become a fundamental idea
in the Chinese conception of film, which has persisted right to the mid-1980s.
Chen abstracts from Hou’s book ‘a complete system of film theory based on
the core idea of shadowplay’ and contends that the shadowplay theory, as an
independent entity ‘endowed with strong Eastern colors’, stands ‘shoulder to
shoulder with’ and ‘in diametric opposition to major systems of Western film
theories’ (Luo et al. 1992: 2: 291–2, 305).

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To illustrate the shadowplay theory, Chen neatly charts the perceived
differences between the Chinese and the Western conceptions of film. The
Chinese regard ‘play’ as essential whereas Westerners regard ‘shadow’ as essen-
tial. The Chinese treat ‘shadow’ as an expressive means to complete the play
whereas Westerners treat ‘play’ as an individual mode of ‘shadow’. The Chinese
are obsessed with debates on dramatic and literary qualities whereas Westerners
are obsessed with differentiating montage and the long take. The Chinese
only study montage and the long take so as better to present ‘play’, whereas
Westerners approach dramatic theory only as pure techniques. All this reflects
two different ways of thinking: the Chinese are holistic whereas Westerners are
analytic (Luo et al. 1992: 2: 296).

In his 1986 exposition of the shadowplay theory, Zhong Dafeng observes the
influence of the civilized play on early Chinese conceptions of film. Instead of a
binary list of East–West differences, Zhong concentrates on the ‘dual structures’
of the shadowplay theory. On the surface is a theory of dramatic techniques, but
‘beneath the cover of dramatization, the deep structure . . . of the shadowplay
theory has produced an ontology of film narration based on film’s functions and
objectives’ (Luo et al. 1992: 2: 315). Again, Hou’s 1926 book is cited as
example, and his neglect of film’s technical aspects such as shots and editing is
taken as the sign of early Chinese filmmakers’ ignorance of the ontology of film.

A number of problems undermine if not invalidate the arguments for the
shadowplay theory. First, its claim to being ‘indigenous’ is untenable because the
evidence cited in support comes from a few Chinese who drew extensively on
Western dramatic or literary theory in the 1920s. Indeed, in the …