What does the concept of "shadow play" in early Chinese cinema refer to? What was the influence on Chinese movie literature?

The earliest movies seen by the Chinese were brought and shown by foreigners.

On August 11, 1896, a novelty was introduced at the Xuyuan Vaudeville amusement park in Shanghai, which was called the "Western shadow play". This is the first record of a movie screening in China, which took place only half a year after the invention of the movie. This screening is said to have consisted mainly of French films, and the following summer, in July 1897, Americans came to Shanghai to show movies. By this time there were more locations, more shows, and more titles than a year earlier. Most of the films of these American dealers were the original films Edison had made for his "movie auditions", and in 1899, the Spaniard Remas first brought some short stories with simple plots to China for screening. He later became the first businessman to operate a movie theater in China, building China's first professional theater, the Hongkou Theater, in Shanghai in 1909. When movies were first shown in China, people called this novelty "Western movie theater", "electric movie theater", "American movie theater", etc. Later, it was gradually simplified to "movie theater". The name "movie theater" became the common name for movies in the early years of the Chinese people.

Most of these films shown in China in the early years are very short clips, mainly three kinds of content: Record: "E Huang traveled to Paris", "Madrid Street Scene", "train station" and so on. Stunts: a woman in a blanket, etc. Funny film: two bicycles collided, resulting in countless bicycles crashed into a ball, a person sleeping was disturbed by insect bites of the dilemma, and so on.