Cinema of China

Actor Tan Xinpei in The Battle of Dingjunshan, 1905

East Asian cinema

Cinema of China Cinema of Hong Kong Cinema of Japan Cinema of Korea Cinema of Mongolia Cinema of Taiwan This box: view · talk · edit

The Chinese-language cinema has three distinct historical threads: Cinema of Hong Kong, Cinema of China, and Cinema of Taiwan. Since 1949 the cinema of mainland China has operated under restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television and the Publicity Department. Many films with political overtones made in China are still censored or banned in China itself; however, some of these films are distributed abroad commercially or at film festivals. China also restricts the showing of foreign-made films in Chinese cinemas to 20 each year.

Currently, the vast majority of the Mainland-produced movies uses Mandarin. Mainland films are often dubbed into Cantonese when exported to Hong Kong for theatrical runs.

As of 2010 Chinese cinema is the third largest film industry by number of feature films produced annually.^[1]

The Beginnings: Shanghai as the centre, 1896-1945

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.^[2] For the next decade the production companies were mainly foreign-owned, and the domestic film industry, centering around Shanghai, a thriving entrepot center and the largest city in the Far East, did not start in earnest until 1916. 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.

It was during this period that some of the more important production companies first came into being, notably Mingxing Film Company ("Bright Star" Pictures) and the Shaw Brothers' Tianyi Film Company ("Unique"). Mingxing, founded by Zheng Zhengqiu and Zhang Shichuan initially focused on comic shorts, including the oldest surviving Chinese film, Laborer's Love (1922).^[3][4] This soon shifted, however, to feature length films and family dramas including Orphan Rescues Grandfather (1923).^[3] Meanwhile, Tianyi shifted their model towards folklore dramas, and also pushed into foreign markets; their film White Snake (1926) proved a typical example of their success in the Chinese communities of Southeast Asia.^[3]

The Leftist movement

However, 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), Sun Yu's The Big Road (1935), and Wu Yonggang's The Goddess (1934). These progressive 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.^[2] 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.^[2] The Leftist cinematic movement often revolved around the Western-influenced Shanghai, where filmmakers portrayed the struggling lower class of an overpopulated city.^[5]

Three production companies dominated the market in the early to mid- 1930s: the newly formed Lianhua ("United China"),^[6] the older and larger Mingxing and Tianyi.^[7] Both Mingxing and Lianhua leaned left (Lianhua's management perhaps more so),^[2] while Tianyi continued to make less socially conscious fare.

The period also produced the first big Chinese movie stars, namely Zhang Zhiyun, Hu Die, Ruan Lingyu, Zhou Xuan, Zhao Dan and Jin Yan. Other major films of the period include New Women (1934), Song of the Fishermen (1934), Crossroads (1937), and Street Angel (1937). Throughout the 1930s, the Nationalists and the Communists struggled for power and control over the major studios; their influence can be seen in the films the studios produced during this period.

Shanghai, the Solitary Island

The Japanese invasion of China, in particular their occupation of Shanghai, ended this golden run in Chinese cinema. All production companies except Xinhua Film Company ("New China") closed shop, and many of the filmmakers fled Shanghai, relocating to Hong Kong, the wartime Nationalist capital Chongqing, and elsewhere. The Shanghai film industry, though severely curtailed, did not stop however, thus leading to the so-called "Solitary Island" period (also known as the "Sole Island", "Isolated 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 Mulan Joins the Army (1939), 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.^[3][8] Following declared war with the Western allies in the aftermath of December 7, 1941, this period largely ended; the solitary island finally being engulfed by the rest 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.^[3] By the end of World War II one of the most controversial Japanese-authorized company, Manchukuo Film Association, would be separated and integrated into Chinese cinema.

The Second Golden Age, the late 1940s

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 had occupied in the previous decade. In 1946, Cai Chusheng returned to Shanghai to revive the Lianhua name as the "Lianhua Film Society."^[9] This in turn became Kunlun Studios which would go on to become one of the most important studios of the era, putting out the classics, Myriad of Lights (1948), The Spring River Flows East (1947), and Crows and Sparrows (1949).^[10] Many of these films showed the disillusionment with the oppressive rule of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Party. 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 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's romantic drama Spring in a Small Town (1948), a film by director Fei Mu 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, with it being named by the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2004 as the greatest Chinese-language film ever made.^[11] 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.^[12] However, with the China Film Archive's re-opening after the Cultural Revolution, a new print was made 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.

The Communist era, 1950s-1960s

A movie theater in Qufu, Shandong

With the communist revolution in China in 1949, the government saw motion pictures as an important mass production art form and tool for propaganda. Starting from 1951, pre-1949 Chinese films and Hollywood and Hong Kong productions were banned as the Communist Party of China sought to tighten control over mass media, producing instead movies centering around peasants, soldiers and workers such as Bridge (1949) and The White Haired Girl (1950). One of the production bases in the middle of all the transition was the Changchun Film Studio.

The number of movie-viewers increased sharply, from 47 million in 1949 to 415 million in 1959. Movie attendance reached an all-time high of 4.17 billion entries in that same year. 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.^[13] For example, in Guerilla on the Railroad (铁道游击队), dated 1956, the Chinese Communist Party was depicted as the primary resistance force against the Japanese in the war against invasion.^[14] 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 most famous of these, the classic Havoc in Heaven (two parts, 1961, 4), was made by Wan Laiming of the Wan Brothers and won Best Film award at the London International Film Festival.

The thawing of censorship in 1956-7 and the early 1960s led to more indigenous Chinese films being made which were less reliant on their Soviet counterparts. The most prominent filmmaker of this era was Xie Jin, whose two films in particular, The Red Detachment of Women (1961) and Two Stage Sisters (1964), exemplify China's increased expertise at filmmaking during this time.

The Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, 1960s-1980s

During the Cultural Revolution, the film industry was severely restricted. Almost all previous films were banned, and only a few new ones were produced, the most notable being a ballet version of the revolutionary opera The Red Detachment of Women (1971). Feature film production came almost to a standstill in the early years from 1967 to 1972. Movie production revived after 1972 under the strict jurisdiction of the Gang of Four until 1976, when they were overthrown. The few films that were produced during this period, such as 1975's Breaking with Old Ideas, were highly regulated in terms of plot and characterization.^[15]

In the years immediately following the Cultural Revolution, the film industry again flourished as a medium of popular entertainment. Domestically produced films played to large audiences, and tickets for foreign film festivals sold quickly. The industry tried to revive crowds by making more innovative and "exploratory" films like their counterparts in the West.

In the 1980s the film industry fell on hard times, faced with the dual problems of competition from other forms of entertainment and concern on the part of the authorities that many of the popular thriller and martial arts films were socially unacceptable. In January 1986 the film industry was transferred from the Ministry of Culture to the newly formed Ministry of Radio, Cinema, and Television to bring it under "stricter control and management" and to "strengthen supervision over production."

The end of the Cultural Revolution brought the release of "scar dramas", which depicted the emotional traumas left by this period. The best-known of these is probably Xie Jin's Hibiscus Town (1986), although they could be seen as late as the 1990s with Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Blue Kite (1993). In the 1980s, open criticism of certain past Communist Party policies was encouraged by Deng Xiaoping as a way reveal the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and the earlier Anti-Rightist Campaign, also helping to legitimize Deng's new policies of "reform and opening up." For instance, the inaugural 1981 Golden Rooster Award was given to two scar dramas, Evening Rain (Wu Yonggang, Wu Yigong, 1980) and Legend of Tianyun Mountain (Xie Jin, 1980).

Most scar dramas were made by members of the Fourth Generation whose own careers or lives had suffered during the events in question, while younger, Fifth Generation directors such as Tian tended to focus on less controversial subjects of the immediate present or the distant past. Official enthusiasm for scar dramas waned by the 1990s when younger filmmakers began to confront negative aspects of the Mao era. The Blue Kite, though sharing a similar subject as the earlier scar dramas, was more realistic in style, and was made only through obfuscating its real script. Shown abroad, it was banned from release in mainland China, while Tian himself was banned from making any films for nearly a decade afterward. After the events of June 4, 1989 in Tiananmen Square, few if any scar dramas were released domestically in mainland China.

The rise of the Fifth Generation, 1980s-1990s

Beginning in the mid-late 1980s, the rise of the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers brought increased popularity of Chinese cinema abroad. Most of the filmmakers who constitute the Fifth Generation had graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982 and included Zhang Yimou, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Chen Kaige, Zhang Junzhao and others. These graduates constituted the first group of filmmakers to graduate since the Cultural Revolution and they soon jettisoned traditional methods of storytelling and opted for a more free and unorthodox approach.^[16] After the so-called scar literature in fiction had paved the way for frank discussion, Zhang Junzhao's One and Eight (1983) and Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth (1984) in particular were taken to mark the beginnings of the Fifth Generation.^[17] The most famous of the Fifth Generation directors, Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, went on to produce celebrated works such as King of the Children (1987), Ju Dou (1989), Farewell My Concubine (1993) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991), which were not only acclaimed by Chinese cinema-goers but by the Western arthouse audience. Tian Zhuangzhuang's films, though less well known by Western viewers, were well noted by directors such as Martin Scorsese. It was during this period that Chinese cinema began reaping the rewards of international attention, including the 1988 Golden Bear for Red Sorghum, the 1992 Golden Lion for The Story of Qiu Ju, the 1993 Palme d'Or for Farewell My Concubine, and three Best Foreign Language Film nominations from the Academy Awards.^[18] All these award-winning films starred actress Gong Li, who became the Fifth Generation's most recognizable star, especially to international audiences.

Extremely diverse in style and subject, the Fifth Generation directors' films ranged from black comedy (Huang Jianxin's The Black Cannon Incident, 1985) to the esoteric (Chen Kaige's Life on a String, 1991), but they share a common rejection of the socialist-realist tradition worked by earlier Chinese filmmakers in the Communist era. Other notable Fifth Generation directors include Wu Ziniu, Hu Mei, and Zhou Xiaowen. Some of their bolder works with political overtones were banned by Chinese authorities.

The Fourth Generation also returned to prominence. Given their label after the rise of the Fifth Generation, these were directors whose careers were stalled by the Cultural Revolution and who were professionally trained prior to 1966. Wu Tianming, in particular, made outstanding contributions by helping to finance major Fifth Generation directors under the auspices of the Xi'an Film Studio, while continuing to make films like Old Well (1986) and The King of Masks (1996).

The Fifth Generation movement ended in part after the 1989 Tiananmen Incident, although its major directors continued to produce notable works, such as The Emperor's Shadow (1996) by Zhou Xiaowen. Several of its filmmakers went into self-imposed exile: Wu Tianming moved to the United States (but has since returned), Huang Jianxin left for Australia, while many others went into television-related works.

Sixth Generation and beyond, 1990s – present

Sixth Generation

The post-1990 era has seen what some observers^[who?] term the "return of the amateur filmmaker" as state censorship policies after the Tiananmen Square demonstrations produced an edgy underground film movement loosely referred to as the Sixth Generation. Owing to the lack of state funding and backing, these films were shot quickly and cheaply, using materials like 16 mm film and digital video and mostly non-professional actors and actresses, producing a documentary feel, often with long takes, hand-held cameras, and ambient sound; more akin to Italian neorealism and cinéma vérité than the often lush, far more considered productions of the Fifth Generation.^[18] Unlike the Fifth Generation, the Sixth Generation brings a more individualistic, anti-romantic life-view and pays far closer attention to contemporary urban life, especially those affected by disorientation, rebellion^[19] and dissatisfaction with China's contemporary social tensions.^[20] Many were made at an extremely low budget (an example is Jia Zhangke, who shoots on digital video and formerly on 16 mm; Wang Xiaoshuai's The Days were made on US$10,000^[20]) and as such their films lack the rich aesthetics of the Fifth Generation. The title and subjects of many of these films reflect the Sixth Generation's concerns. The Sixth Generation takes an interest in marginalized individuals and the less represented fringes of society. For example, Zhang Yuan's hand-shot Beijing Bastards focuses on youth punk subculture, featuring artists like Cui Jian, Dou Wei and He Yong frowned upon by many state authorities,^[21] while Jia Zhangke's debut film Xiao Wu (1997) concerns a provincial pickpocket.

As the Sixth Generation were further exposed internationally, many of their subsequent movies were joint ventures and projects with international investments, but remained quite resolutely low-key and low budget. Jia's Platform (2000) was funded in part by Takeshi Kitano's production house,^[22] while his Still Life was shot on HD interlaced video. Still Life was a surprise addition and Golden Lion winner of the 2006 Venice International Film Festival. Still Life, which concerns provincial workers around the Three Gorges region, was a vast contrast with the works the Fifth Generation Chinese directors like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige were directing then, like House of Flying Daggers (2004) and The Promise (2005). It featured no star of international renown and was acted mostly by non-professionals.

Many of Sixth Generation films have highlighted the negative attributes of China's entry into the modern capitalist market. Li Yang's Blind Shaft for example, is an account of two murderous con-men in the unregulated and notoriously dangerous mining industry of northern China.^[23] (Li refused the tag of Sixth Generation, although he admitted he was not Fifth Generation either).^[19] While Jia Zhangke's The World emphasizes the emptiness of globalization in the backdrop of an internationally-themed amusement park.^[24][25]

Some of the important^{[says who?]} Sixth Generation directors to have emerged are Wang Xiaoshuai (The Days, Beijing Bicycle), Zhang Yuan (Beijing Bastards, East Palace West Palace), Jia Zhangke (Xiao Wu, Unknown Pleasures, Platform, The World), He Jianjun (Postman) and Lou Ye (Suzhou River, Summer Palace). One young director who does not share most of the concerns of the Sixth Generation is Lu Chuan (Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, 2004; City of Life and Death, 2010).

Post-Sixth Generation: the dGeneration independent movement

There is a growing number of independent post-Sixth Generation filmmakers making films for extremely low budgets and using digital equipment. They are the so-called dGeneration (for digital). These films, like those from Sixth Generation filmmakers, are mostly made outside of the Chinese film system and are played mostly on the international film festival circuit. Ying Liang and Jian Yi are two of these dGeneration filmmakers. Ying's Taking Father Home (2005) and The Other Half (2006) are both representative of the dGeneration trends of feature film. Liu Jiayin made two dGeneration feature films Oxhide (2004) and Oxhide II (2010), blurring the line between documentary and narrative film. Oxhide, made by Liu when she was just a film student, frames herself and her parents in their claustrophobic Beijing apartment in a sly, wickedly funny narrative much praised by critics Tony Rayns and Shelly Kraicer.^[26]

New Documentary Movement

Two decades of reform and commercialization have brought dramatic social changes in mainland China, reflected not only in fiction film but in a growing documentary movement. Wu Wenguang's 70-minute Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers (1990) is now seen as one of the first work of this "New Documentary Movement" (NDM) in China of China's New Documentary.^[27][28] Bumming, made between 1988 and 1990, contains interviews with six young artists eking out a living in Beijing, subject to state authorized tasks. Shot using a camcorder, the documentary ends with five of the artists moving abroad after the 1989 Tiananmen Protests.^[29] Dance with the Farm Workers (2001) is another documentary by Wu.^[30]

Another internationally acclaimed documentary is Wang Bing's nine-hour tale of deindustrialization Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2003). Wang's subsequent documentaries, Fengming: A Chinese Memoir (2007), Crude Oil (2008) and The Ditch (2010), cemented his reputation as a leading documentarist of the movement.^{[citation needed]}

Li Hong, the first woman in the NDM, in Out of Phoenix Bridge (1997) relates the story of four young women, who moving from rural areas to the big cities like millions of other men and women, have come to Beijing to make a living.

The New Documentary Movement in recent times has overlapped with the dGeneration filmmaking, with most documentaries being shot cheaply and independently in the digital format. Huang Weikai's Disorder (2009), Zhao Dayong's Ghost Town (2009), Du Haibing's 1428 (2009), Xu Tong's Fortune Teller (2010), Li Ning’s Tape (2010) and Xu Xin's Karamay (2010) were all shot in digital format. All had made their impact in the international documentary scene and the use of digital format allows for works of vaster lengths.

New models and the new Chinese cinema

Commercial films

With China's liberalization in the late 1970s and its opening up to foreign markets, commercial considerations have made its impact in post-1980s filmmaking. Traditionally arthouse movies screened seldom make enough to break even. An example is Fifth Generation director Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Horse Thief (1986), a narrative film with minimal dialog on a Tibetan horse thief. The film, showcasing exotic landscapes, was well received by Chinese and some Western arthouse audiences, but did poorly at the box office.^[31] Tian's later The Warrior and the Wolf (2010) was a similar commercial failure.^[32] Prior to these, there were examples of successful commercial films in the post-liberalization period. One was the romance film Romance on the Lu Mountain (1980), which was a success with older Chinese. The film broke the Guiness Book of Records as the longest-running film on a first run. Jet Li's cinematic debut Shaolin Temple (1982) was an instant hit at home and abroad (in Japan and the Southeast Asia, for example).^[33] Another successful commercial film was Murder in 405 (1980), a murder thriller.^[34]

Feng Xiaogang's The Dream Factory (1997) ^[35] was one of the first to bridge the gap between critical acclaim and successful commercialism. The Dream Factory was heralded as a turning point in Chinese movie industry, a hesui pian (Chinese New Year-screened film) which demonstrated the viability of the commercial model in China's socialist market society. Feng has become the most successful commercial director in the post-1997 era. All of his films made high returns domestically^[36] while he used ethnic Chinese co-stars like Rosamund Kwan, Jacqueline Wu, Rene Liu and Shu Qi to boost his films' appeal.

Today, owing to the influx of Hollywood films (though the number screened each year is curtailed), Chinese domestic cinema faces mounting challenges. Though the industry is growing, few domestic films save those by Feng make the box office impact of major Hollywood blockbusters like Titanic (1997). In January 2010 James Cameron's Avatar was pulled out in some theaters for Hu Mei's biopic Confucius, but this state move led to a backlash on Hu's film.^[37] Zhang Yang's 2005 Sunflower also made little money, but his earlier, low-budget Spicy Love Soup (1997) grossed ten times its budget of ¥3 million.^[38] Likewise, the 2006 Crazy Stone, a sleeper hit, was made for just 3 million HKD/US$400,000. In 2009-11, Feng's Aftershock (2009) and Jiang Wen's Let the Bullets Fly (2010) became China's highest grossing domestic films, with Aftershock earning RMB 640 million (US$97.4 million) and Let the Bullets Fly RMB 730 million (US$111 million).^[39]

Other directors

Chinese cinema's successes beyond 1980 has led to the classifications of "The Fifth Generation" and "Sixth Generation", but some major directors have not been categorized into either, owing to the rather specialized genres they work under. He Ping is a director of mostly Western-like films set in Chinese locale. His Swordsmen in Double Flag Town (1991) and Sun Valley (1995) explore narratives set in the sparse terrain of West China near the Gobi Desert. His historical drama Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker (1994) won a myriad of prizes home and abroad.

Recent cinema has seen Chinese cinematographers direct some acclaimed films. Other than Zhang Yimou, Lü Yue made Mr. Zhao (1998), a black comedy film well received abroad. Gu Changwei's minimalist epic Peacock (2005), about a quiet, ordinary Chinese family with three very different siblings in the post-Cultural Revolution era, took home the Silver Bear prize for 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. Hou Yong is another cinematographer who made films (Jasmine Women, 2004) and TV series. There are actors who straddle the dual roles of acting and directing. Xu Jinglei, a popular Chinese actress, has made four movies to date. Her second film Letter from an Unknown Woman (2004) landed her the San Sebastián International Film Festival Best Director award. The most highly regarded Chinese actor-director is undoubtedly Jiang Wen, who has directed several critically acclaimed movies while following on his acting career. His directorial debut, In the Heat of the Sun (1994) was the first PRC film to win Best Picture at the Golden Horse Film Awards held in Taiwan. His other films, like Devils on the Doorstep (2000, Cannes Grand Prix) and Let the Bullets Fly (2010), were similarly well received. By the early 2011, Let the Bullets Fly has become the highest grossing domestic film in China's history.^[39][40]

Successes abroad

Since the late 1980s and progressively in the 2000s, Chinese films have enjoyed considerable box office success abroad. Formerly viewed only by cinetastes in the 1980s, its international appeal mounted after the immense international success of Ang Lee's period wuxia film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000, which earned Ang and Chinese cinema massive commercial and critical acclaim abroad. The multi-national production Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon achieved success at the Western box office, particularly in the United States, providing an introduction to Chinese cinema (and especially the Wuxia genre) for many and increased the popularity of many earlier Chinese films which may have otherwise been relatively unknown to Westerners. To date Crouching Tiger remains the most commercially successfully foreign-language film in U.S. history. Similarly, in 2002, Zhang Yimou's Hero was another international box office success. Its cast featured many of the most famous Chinese actors who were also known to some extent in the West, including Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. Despite criticisms by some that these two films pander somewhat to Western tastes, Hero was a phenomenal success in most of Asia and topped the U.S. box office for two weeks, making enough in the U.S. alone to cover the production costs.

Other films such as Farewell My Concubine, 2046, Suzhou River, The Road Home and House of Flying Daggers have also been critically acclaimed around the world. The Hengdian World Studios can be seen as the "Chinese Hollywood", with a total area of up to 330 ha. and 13 shooting bases, including a 1:1 copy of the Forbidden City.

The successes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero increasing makes it difficult to demarcate what may be called the boundary between "Mainland Chinese" cinema and a more international-based "Chinese-language cinema". Crouching Tiger, for example, was directed by a Taiwanese American director (Ang Lee). Its ethnic Chinese leads include Mainland Chinese (Zhang Ziyi), Hong Kong (Chow Yun-Fat), Taiwanese (Chang Chen) and Malaysian (Michelle Yeoh) actors and actresses; the film was co-produced by an array of Chinese, American, Hong Kong, Taiwanese film companies. Likewise, Lee's Chinese-language Lust, Caution (2007) draws a crew and cast from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland, and includes an orchestral score by French composer Alexandre Desplat. This merging of people, resources and expertise from the three regions and the broader Sinosphere and the world, marks the movement of Chinese-language cinema into a domain of large scale international influence. Other examples of films in this mold include The Promise (2005), The Banquet (2006), Fearless (2006), The Warlords (2007), Bodyguards and Assassins (2009) and Red Cliff (2008-9). The ease with which ethnic Chinese actresses and actors straddle the mainland and Hong Kong is in part permitted by PRC state rules. Some artistes originating from the mainland, like Hu Jun, Zhang Ziyi, Tang Wei and Zhou Xun, obtained Hong Kong residency under the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme and have acted in Hong Kong productions.^[41] Tighter-financed Chinese-language cinema from the mainland are relatively localized in content; many mainland films are unable to find distributors abroad - these films were never released outside the PRC and can only be viewed through DVDs, VCDs or on satellite and cable TV channels.

Main Sources

• Film History: An Introduction. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell. Second edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
• The Oxford History of World Cinema. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (ed). Oxford University Press, 1999.

See also

	China portal
	Film portal

• East Asian cinema
• Chinese animation
• Chinese art

Related cinema

• Cinema of Hong Kong
  • Hong Kong action cinema
• Cinema of Taiwan

Lists

• List of Chinese actors
• List of Chinese actresses
• List of Chinese directors
• List of Chinese films
• List of Chinese film production companies (pre-PRC)

References

1. ^ Brenhouse, Hillary (2011-01-31). "As Its Box Office Booms, Chinese Cinema Makes a 3-D Push". Time. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2044888,00.html. Retrieved 2011-9-14. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Martin Geiselmann (2006). "Chinese Film History - A Short Introduction" (PDF). The University of Vienna- Sinologie Program. http://www.univie.ac.at/Sinologie/repository/ueLK110_ChinFilmgesch/filmgeschichteSkript.pdf. Retrieved 2007-07-25. 
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} Zhang Yingjin (2003-10-10). "A Centennial Review of Chinese Cinema". University of California-San Diego. http://chinesecinema.ucsd.edu/essay_ccwlc.html. Retrieved 2007-04-26. 
4. ^ "A Brief History of Chinese Film". Ohio State University. http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/denton2/courses/c505/temp/history/chapter2.html. Retrieved 2007-04-24. 
5. ^ Laikwan Pang, Building a New China in Cinema(Rowman and Littlefield Productions, Oxford, 2002)
6. ^ Lianhua is also sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as the "United Photoplay Service".
7. ^ Kraicer, Shelly (2005-12-06). "Timeline". Hollywood Reporter. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/international/feature_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001614559. Retrieved 2006-05-08. 
8. ^ Ministry of Culture Staff (2003). "Sole Island Movies". ChinaCulture.org. http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_artqa/2003-09/24/content_38559.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-18. 
9. ^ Zhang Yingjin (2007-01-2004). "Chinese Cinema - Cai Chusheng". University of California-San Diego. http://chinesecinema.ucsd.edu/directors_ccwlc.html#cai. Retrieved 2007-04-25. 
10. ^ "Kunlun Film Company". British Film Institute. 2004. http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/organisation/13907. Retrieved 2007-04-25. 
11. ^ "Welcome to the Hong Kong Film Awards". 2004. http://www.hkfaa.com/news/100films.html. Retrieved 2007-04-04. 
12. ^ Zhang Yingjin, "Introduction" in Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943, ed. Yingjin Zhang (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 8.
13. ^ Li Xiao (2004-01-17). "Film Industry in China". China.org.cn. http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/film/84966.htm. Retrieved 2007-02-27. 
14. ^ Braester, Yumi. "The Purloined Lantern: Maoist Semiotics and Public Discourse in Early PRC Film and Drama", p 111, in Witness Against History: Literature, Film, and Public Discourse in Twentieth-Century China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
15. ^ Zhang, Yingjin & Xiao, Zhiwei. "Breaking with Old Ideas" in Encyclopedia of Chinese Film. Taylor & Francis (1998), p. 101. ISBN 0-415-15168-6.
16. ^ Yvonne Ng (2002-11-19). "The Irresistible Rise of Asian Cinema-Tian Zhuangzhuang: A Director of the 21st Century". Kinema. Archived from the original on 2007-04-16. http://web.archive.org/web/20070416073506/http://kinema.uwaterloo.ca/ghy-941.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-23. 
17. ^ Notably Zhang Yimou served as cinematographer for both films.
18. ^ ^{a b} Rose, S. "The great fall of China", The Guardian, 2002-08-01. Retrieved on 2007-04-28.
19. ^ ^{a b} http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/feature-articles/li_yang/
20. ^ ^{a b} Corliss, Richard (2001-03-26). "Bright Lights". Time. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,103002,00.html. 
21. ^ http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr_18/SFfr18a.html
22. ^ http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/denton2/courses/c505/temp/platform.html
23. ^ Kahn, Joseph (2003-05-07). "Filming the Dark Side Of Capitalism in China". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504EFD7113CF934A35756C0A9659C8B63. Retrieved 2008-04-10. 
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Further reading

• Rey Chow, Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema, Columbia University Press 1995.
• Cheng, Jim, Annotated Bibliography For Chinese Film Studies, Hong Kong University Press 2004.
• Shuqin Cui, Women Through the Lens: Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema, University of Hawaii Press 2003.
• Dai Jinhua, Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua, eds. Jing Wang and Tani E. Barlow. London: Verso 2002.
• Jay Leyda, Dianying, MIT Press, 1972.
• Harry H. Kuoshu, Celluloid China: Cinematic Encounters with Culture and Society, Southern Illinois University Press 2002 - introduction, discusses 15 films at length.
• Laikwan Pang, Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932-1937, Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc 2002.
• Zhen Ni, Chris Berry, Memoirs From The Beijing Film Academy, Duke University Press 2002.
• Semsel, George, ed. "Chinese Film: The State of the Art in the People's Republic", Praeger, 1987.
• Semsel, George, Xia Hong, and Hou Jianping, eds. Chinese Film Theory: A Guide to the New Era", Praeger, 1990.
• Semsel, George, Chen Xihe, and Xia Hong, eds. Film in Contemporary China: Critical Debates, 1979-1989", Praeger, 1993.
• Gary G. Xu, Sinascape: Contemporary Chinese Cinema, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
• Yingjin Zhang, Chinese National Cinema (National Cinemas Series.), Routledge 2004 - general introduction.
• Yingjin Zhang (Author), Zhiwei Xiao (Author, Editor), Encyclopedia of Chinese Film, Routledge, 1998.

External links

• Chinese Cinema at the Open Directory Project
• Journal of Chinese Cinema
• MCLC Resource Center-Media