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 Law 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 same year when his book came out, Hou Yao published an article citing a British critic’s theory of literature – an art that comprises elements such as emotion, imagination, thought and form. Since these four essential elements are crucial to film itself, Hou advanced a thesis that transcended national and cultural boundaries: ‘Film is literature! Film is live literature!’ (ZDZ 1996a: 500–1). Second, the kind of film theory differentiating between drama and film Chen and Zhong refer to either had not been formulated or had not been translated in the 1920s. Instead of their perceived fundamental differences, historically Western and Chinese filmmakers were equally occupied with the dramatic aspects of film arts in the silent period. Third, to the extent that the shadowplay theory privileges narration and the social function of narrative, it is not so much a distinguishing feature for Chinese film as it is for Chinese narrative in general. What is missing in the shadowplay theory, in this respect, is a critical distinction between Chinese and Western narrative theory. Given unsolved problems like these, the best way to appraise the conception of ‘shadowplay’ is not to abstract it as an indigenous theory, but to contextualize it in early Chinese cinema as a convenient practice through which filmmakers successfully reached out to the audience familiar with traditional theater and fiction.

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