The development history of modern Chinese films

In 1895, the world's first movie was born, and human artistic creation and cultural ideals entered a new historical era. Chinese cinema was born in 1905. Along with the progress of world cinema and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, with its distinctive national personality and aesthetic characteristics, it has made brilliant achievements, created historical monuments, and made unique artistic contributions to world cinema. contribute.

Folklore Film Period

This stage lasted from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, with Chen Kaige's "Yellow Earth", Zhang Yimou's "Red Sorghum" and "Farewell My Concubine", "Alive" is the representative. Chinese films took the first step towards the world and began to receive international attention, winning a series of awards such as the Golden Bear, the Golden Lion, the Palme d'Or, and the Venice Film Festival.

Chinese films of this period were based on feudal families and showed tragic stories of crime and punishment during China’s feudal autocratic period; although these themes caused foreign people’s misunderstanding of China to a certain extent, they But it has made more people interested in China, and it has also enabled the fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers such as Gong Li, Ge You, Zhang Yimou and other Chinese filmmakers to grow into world filmmakers.

The Independent Film Period

The period from the mid-1990s to the late 1990s was the lowest period of the Chinese film industry in modern times. On the one hand, it was due to the overly strict censorship of the film industry by the Chinese government; On the one hand, it is due to the impact of television culture. Against this difficult historical background, the 6th generation of Chinese filmmakers have produced a certain number of works from the perspective of marginalized cultural attitudes, the lives of lower class people, and the integration of Chinese and Western cultures, and have achieved certain success at major film festivals around the world. Achievement. Such as "taking a bath", "hair is messed up", etc.

Transnational Film Period

Since China joined the WTO in 2001, China's film industry has entered a new stage of rapid development. The great progress of Chinese films has brought films back into people's daily lives. Last year alone, the overseas box office revenue of Chinese films reached 1.9 billion, exceeding 2/3 of the domestic box office revenue (2.8 billion). Chinese films that use classical themes, chivalrous themes, heterosexual stories, and martial arts scenes as expression techniques have won wide acclaim from the international market. "Hero", "A World Without Thieves", "The Night Banquet", and "A City Full of Golden Armor" are outstanding representatives of this period. At the same time, through movies, a huge advertising carrier, Chinese culture is becoming more and more known overseas.

Extended information:

From 1896 to the 1920s, although foreign companies occupied a monopoly position in the Chinese film market, they could not stop the beginning of film activities in our country. In 1903, German student Lin Zhusan returned to China with films and projectors, and rented them to Tianle Tea Garden, a polishing factory in Qianmen, Beijing, to screen films. In 1905, in order to celebrate the birthday of Peking opera veteran Tan Xinpei, Ren Qingtai of Fengtai Photo Studio in Beijing filmed part of a scene from the Peking Opera "Dingjun Mountain" starring him.

From the beginning, Chinese movies have been combined with traditional Chinese opera and rap arts to develop a unique set of movie types. However, Fengtai Photo Studio, which was the first to try to shoot this type of film, was only a small-scale operation and could not be regarded as a film institution.

It was not until the emergence of the "Activity Film Department" of the Commercial Press that it truly represented the beginning of China's film industry. During this period, in addition to "Business", film production organizations that appeared successively include "Asia Film Company", "Huanxian", "China", "Shanghai", "Xinya", etc. invested by American businessmen. Most of their members came from the theater stage, so most of the themes and content of the films at that time were derived from Chinese opera and civilized drama. In addition, they also began to shoot feature films and feature films, making their initial exploration and attempt at the art of film.

Chinese film was born in 1905 and has gone through various historical stages such as China's semi-feudal and semi-colonial period, the revolutionary war period, the construction period of New China, the Cultural Revolution period, the reform and opening up period and the new period of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way; It has experienced technological changes from silent to sound, from black and white to color, from analog to digital, and from tradition to modernity.

At different stages of development, Chinese films have left outstanding masterpieces: during the pioneering period of the 1920s, there were progressive films focusing on social transformation such as "The Orphan Saves the Ancestor"; during the anti-Japanese and national salvation period, there were "Crazy Flow" ”, “Children of China” and other films that inspired fighting spirit and promoted patriotism; after the Anti-Japanese War, films such as “Eight Thousand Miles of Clouds and Moon” and “A River of Spring Flows East” deeply revealed the contradictions and essence of society, forming a realist creative trend. .

She said that in the 17 years after the founding of New China in 1949, a large number of excellent works that combined realism and romanticism, such as "The White-Haired Girl", "Blessing" and "Lin's Shop", emerged, shaping the A large number of screen images with a strong national style formed the first climax of the development of new Chinese films; after ten years of the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese films came out of the low ebb, and produced a large number of films such as "Little Flower" and "Middle Age" that reflected the practice of reform , an excellent film that criticizes current social ills. Especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s, films with major revolutionary historical themes such as "The Founding Ceremony" and "The Final Battle" and reality-themed films such as "Jiao Yulu" and "Phoenix Piano" formed a second climax.

In the 1990s, Zhao Shi said that Chinese films have successively implemented major measures such as film and television convergence reform, film quality project, rural film screening project, film joint-stock system, and group reform, and the artistic quality and form have been greatly improved. There are new breakthroughs and improvements. In addition to works such as "Kong Fansen", "The Day I Left Lei Feng", "Xilian", "That Mountain, That Man, That Dog", there are also new styles of New Year films and comedies such as "See You or Not Separate", and a large number of new forces have emerged. Entering the new century, Chinese films have formed a new pattern of coordinated development of state-owned, collective, and private ownership, and film development has embarked on a virtuous cycle.

Masterpieces such as "Deng Xiaoping", "Kekexili" and "Once Upon a Time in Taiwan" have achieved both social and economic benefits. Domestic blockbusters such as "Hero" and "Myth" have also occupied a dominant position in the Chinese market. And created a box office miracle for Chinese movies in the world film industry. More than 30 Chinese films have won awards at more than 40 international film festivals, marking the arrival of the third development climax.

Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Chinese Film History