The History of Chinese Cinema Preferably in English. Urgent! Please help me, thank you!

The Beginning of Chinese Cinema (1896-1921)

In 1896, the Lumière brothers hired twenty assistants to travel to the five continents to show movies. The movie was introduced to China as a result of the business strategy of western businessmen to expand their markets. Subsequently, many European and American businessmen, seeing that China's projection industry was profitable, came to invest in China. During this period, although foreigners occupied a monopolistic position in the Chinese film market, they could not stop the beginning of Chinese film activities. From the very beginning, Chinese movies were combined with the traditional Chinese opera and rap art to develop a unique movie genre. In addition, they also began to make short and feature-length dramas, which were the first attempts to explore and experiment with the art of cinema.

The Development of Chinese Cinema (1922-1926)

After the First World War, the once prosperous national capitalist industry once again went out of control due to the chaos of warlords and the invasion of imperialism in China. Under this circumstance, the national capitals were eager to find a way out of investment, and the investment in movies brought them a new lease of life. They reversed their previous conception of the movie as a game industry and considered it as a "cultural enterprise" that "would become a worldwide popularization". Many of the studios they opened were "one-shot" companies, and not even a single movie was made. But the emergence of many companies created the first "prosperous period" of Chinese movies. Under the backing of commercial investment, movie genres with different artistic ideas and production directions emerged and gathered in different studios. The most influential of them were the following: Minxin, which was characterized by literati temperament; Shenzhou, which was dominated by humanistic ethics and subtle influence; Shanghai Film and Television Company, which deliberately pursued visual effects; Greater China Lily Company, which was characterized by "Europeanization"; Tianyi, which had a special preference for old cultures and traditions; and Star Company, which was highly influential and featured popular social films; all of these studios, though separated into genres in terms of their creative ideas, had a strong influence in the production of films. Although these companies were separated in terms of their creative ideas, their focus shifted from short films to feature films. In addition, these companies have begun to take shape, forming a systematic movie industry in terms of production, distribution and screening.

The Crisis Period of Chinese Cinema (1927-1930)

The 4.12 coup d'état in 1927 led to the defeat of the Northern Expeditionary War and the breakup of national cooperation. In 1928, Star Company produced the commercially successful "The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple", which was based on the movie "Pingjiang Busho". The movie was based on the book "The Legend of Jianghu Chivalry" by Pingjiang Buxiao Sheng, and was released in May of the same year. The movie was released in May of the same year, and "Star Company" did not expect to be a sensation after the movie was released. So they continued to shoot one episode after another, up to eighteen episodes. When other companies found that martial arts films not only catered to the mass market, but were also welcomed by the Nanyang film distributors. When other companies realized that martial arts films not only catered to the mass market, but were also welcomed by the South Pacific film distributors, they started to produce "monster movies" and "martial arts movies". Instead of the once popular "costume movies" and "romance movies", they started to make "monster movies" and "martial arts movies", which replaced the once popular "costume movies" and "romance movies". After that, the "Revival of National Films" movement advocated by "UMC" was aimed at "reforming the style of national films, which is characterized by gods and monsters, superstition, viciousness, and killings", "advocating the arts, promoting culture, enlightening the people, and rescuing the film industry", and most of the films produced by UMC were "New School Films".

Left-wing Film Movement (1932-1937)

The Chinese left-wing film movement was an extension and development of the left-wing cultural movement in China, which, after the outbreak of the September 18th Incident of 1931 and the January 28th Incident of 1932, awakened the national consciousness, and many movie-goers, dissatisfied with the proliferation of martial arts films, proposed "awakening to save the country". Through a series of activities, left-wing filmmakers began to influence the development of Chinese cinema in terms of film production and movie-going consciousness.In March 1933, the Central Committee for History and Literature of China set up a film group with Shen Duanxian as its head. In the same year, it was estimated that among the more than 70 films produced by various film companies, about two-thirds of them were of left-wing ideology and progressive tendency. This year was also known as the "Year of Chinese Cinema". During this period, the emphasis was on making movies that touched directly on social issues. Throughout the period of the left-wing film movement, the films were true reflections of the social unrest of the time, encouraged the anti-Japanese movement, and were a continuation of Chinese realist films.

Chinese Anti-Japanese War Cinema (1937-1945)

The outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War led to the destruction of most of the film studios in Shanghai, the base of China's cinema, which ceased to operate, and the pattern of China's cinema underwent a marked change. As the filmmakers were dispersed and converged, they reunited in Wuhan and Chongqing within the Kuomintang-ruled area, went south to Hong Kong, or stayed in Shanghai and took refuge in the "isolated island" of Shanghai to continue to engage in film creation. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Shanghai film and theatre workers first set up rescue organizations and made anti-war films. They also went to the mainland to carry out anti-Japanese propaganda. They made a series of anti-war news and documentaries. In January 1938, these filmmakers formed the All-China Film Industry Anti-Enemy Association, which made the goal and direction of the film industry clearer and clearer.Between 1937 and 1941, as many as 20 production companies appeared in the "isolated island", producing as many as 240 films. The number of films produced was about 240. Most of them were crude "costume films", but only a few of them, such as "Mulan in the Army", "Tears in the Flower", "Scenery of Chaos", "Confucius", etc., were serious films that publicized the righteousness of the civilized people. In the fall of 1938, under the planning and assistance of Zhou Enlai and the famous Dutch film master Joris Ivens, the Yan'an Film Troupe was established. In the absence of film and equipment, the troupe still penetrated into the battle front behind the enemy and shot more than 20 newsreels, documentaries and feature films***. In 1945, the New Fourth Army and the central China base area also began to have movie activities, mainly to shoot some news and documentaries.

Post-war Chinese cinema (1946-1949)

August 15, 1945, although Japan announced its unconditional surrender, ending the eight-year war against Japan, the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Kuomintang began immediately, and society was still in turmoil. The movie enterprises were divided into three categories: the liberated areas, the national government and the private sector. The two most important private film companies were Kunlun and Wenhua. Among Kunlun's works, he was best known for his grandiose epics and films that were faithful to realism. The former is represented by narrative epics such as "A River Flows East" and "Eight Thousand Miles of Road, Clouds and Moon", while the latter is characterized by realistic aesthetics such as "Ten Thousand Lights" and "Green Hills and Green Valleys". Most of the films produced by Mandarin Pictures made the depiction of human beings the main focus, and war was often pushed to the background. Representative works include Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town, Yue Feng and Chen Yi-Qing's Dreaming in the Wushan Mountains. In the liberated areas, the types of films produced were feature films, art films, science education films, translations, etc. In April 1949, the East Film Studio started to make the first film of the new China, "The Bridge".

The period of silence in Chinese cinema (1950-1980)

Filmmakers lost their critical spirit towards reality. As they could not write about the shortcomings of the socialist system, writers and directors of "popular dramas" became useless. Movies of the period focused on the opposing poles of a moral conflict.

Chinese Film Recovery (1981-1989)

Deconstructionism was in vogue, and the general trend in the 1980s was a revival of the popular dramas of the May Fourth Movement. But the new generation of directors wanted to go beyond the "popular drama" model of great joy and great sorrow, because real life was not that simple. This makes the audience need to think more when watching the movie.

Chinese films entered the world (1990- )

In 1990, Zhang Yimou's "Chrysanthemum Bean" was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign-language film, setting a precedent for Chinese films to be nominated for the Oscar. Chinese films began to fill the world's major film festivals, and Chinese cinema was in full development. The movie director chose a suspended and immobile subject position, through which he accomplished a historical landscape of dual cultural identities, skillfully sewing up the East and the West, the local and the world, between dual identities and dual interpretations.