A brief history of China's film history in the past hundred years

From the birth of 1905 China's first film "Dingjun Mountain" to 2005, China films have gone through a whole hundred years. In the hundred-year history of China films, the development of China films can not be separated from the integration of China martial arts.

China movies range from silent, stand-alone and black-and-white movies to high-tech, big investment, surround sound image maximization, and even the most influential film festival in the world. Martial arts films and chivalrous thoughts of advocating martial arts play an important role in China's films. Therefore, it can be said that China Wushu promoted the development of China films; China's films promoted and publicized China Wushu.

There are three periods of industrial development in China film history: the first industrial period of China film was 1922- 1937. In the second year after the birth of the world film, there were 1896 films in Shanghai, and the local film industry in China started from commercial screening. After its infancy, it began to develop into a private industry in the 1920s. At that time, the social capital environment and industry preparation became more and more mature, and the national industry and commerce gained unprecedented opportunities for rapid development. The gradual filling of personal/social capital, more accurately, "hot money", has made many capitalists begin to target the new industry of film. In this industry, the reserve of talents and technology is sufficient. A group of filmmakers such as Zhang Shichuan, Zhengqiu Zheng, and later Shaw Brothers are pioneers who came out of the cradle. They were involved in the creation, production, distribution and screening of the film industry to varying degrees, and their accumulated experience made them the backbone of the films in the 1920s and 1930s. Technically, the initial equipment use and shooting process depended on foreign technicians, but this situation was quickly broken with the participation of the first batch of technicians such as Luo Yongxiang and Dong He. With the above conditions, marked by the establishment of a star company in 1922, the film company grew rapidly and reached its peak in 1924- 1926. According to statistics, there are 175 film companies in China, and there are 14 1 in Shanghai alone.

In the process of this big wave scouring the sand, three major companies, Star, Lianhua and Tianyi, surfaced, forming a tripartite confrontation. The establishment of Shanghai time-honored brand "Star" is a great event in the history of film, which has always occupied the first place and brought the operation mode of individual capital to the extreme. Lianhua, founded in 1930, has the innate conditions of cinema, forming a "preliminary United front between cinema and film industry". Ming-Yau Lo took the lead in a private company to realize one-stop production, development and distribution. His management ideas are all advanced now. He tried to end the individual capital management era of China films and enter the advanced stage of monopolizing financial capital. However, when this advanced idea meets the fire of war and the budding financial system, it can only be described as a bright future on paper, and Ming-Yau Lo becomes a tragic figure; Tianyi Company, founded in 1925, has a remarkable style of winning by quantity, but it has successfully opened up the Southeast Asian market and developed to the present "Xiao", and its lifeline is long enough to independently support a vivid history of private enterprise development. At the same time, the different production strategies of the three major companies have also contributed different art forms to China's films. Star is the originator of a long drama, Lianhua is the source of literary films, and Tianyi fully shows the pulse of "historical and miraculous films", and the types of these films are still continuing today.

The three major companies are representatives of the upstream film industry in the film industry chain, and the downstream distribution and projection industries that are developing simultaneously with them are not to be outdone. In Shanghai, the original cinema screening was run by westerners. Qinglian Pavilion in Remus, Spain was the first fixed film screening point, and later its own "cinema line" was established. By the time Remus returned from Shanghai in 1926, his movable and immovable property totaled more than one million, which was enough to be called "the king of movies". When Remus retired in his later years, Zhang Shichuan and Zhang Changfu, the manager of EMI Company, finally waited for the right moment, and immediately rented five cinemas in Remus in March of 1926, and set up the Central Cinema Company, with the former Central Grand Theatre as the leading cinema, absorbing China and Peace, and the Central Cinema Company directly managed seven cinemas. The formation of this national cinema is a sign that filmmakers set foot in the projection industry, and at the same time, the cinemas of China films have started a new division. In the north, 19 18 Ming-Yau Lo, who started to run Beijing Zhenguang Film Company, and 1927, a British Chinese who runs western films and three cinemas owned by Lu Gen, the chairman of Ping An Film Co., Ltd., made a joint venture and named it North China Film Company. 1929 North China Film Company entered its heyday. In addition to controlling the first and second screenings of Chinese and foreign films in the above-mentioned cinemas, Ming-Yau Lo also has cinemas directly or indirectly under the jurisdiction of Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan, Zhengzhou, Jinan, Qingdao and even Shenyang and Harbin. At the same time, in just a few years, it has controlled the distribution and screening of films in the northern region, operating more than 20 cinemas, excluding all foreign investors who once monopolized cinemas, and has become a veritable "North China" in the cinema industry.

In the face of China's huge market and rich returns, eight Hollywood companies flocked to Shanghai and set up offices in North China. With regard to the number of films screened at that time, figures show that American films dominated the screening market of China films and even determined the livelihood of the film industry with an absolute advantage of accounting for more than 80% of imported films every year. Although the total output of domestic films is only 1/3 or 1/4 of that of imported films, the influence of domestic films in China is not inferior to that of foreign films dominated by American films. After 1937, the film industry in Shanghai has changed due to the fluctuation of the current situation. With the disappearance of the "stars", the disintegration of Lianhua and the southward migration of Tianyi, the old film industry gradually died out. A golden age and prosperity of China's film industry came to an abrupt end in the sound of anti-Japanese gunfire.

By 1956, the former Soviet Union had basically completed the system construction task with the main goal of "independent and complete film production base".

1945 After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, energetic filmmakers made a number of representative works, such as Spring in a Small Town.

1February, 949, after a short preparation, the Film Administration was established in Beiping on the eve of the establishment of People's Republic of China (PRC), led by the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, with Yuan as the director. The first task of the Film Bureau after its establishment is to establish a national film studio.

1950, the Soviet film Lenin in October was released, in which Lenin and Stalin spoke Mandarin with a northeast flavor. Since then, dubbing has become an important part of China's films.

During this period, three state-owned film companies, Northeast Film Studio, Beiping Film Studio and Shanghai Film Studio, were established one after another, which took the first step for the new China film industry at the turning point in history. In the planning of the new China film industry, distribution and projection are equally prominent, and the nationalization system is both the initial planning and the ultimate goal. Therefore, with the victory of the war of liberation, film manager companies have been established in various places, and they have been pushed from Shanhaiguan to the Central Plains. On the timetable, it can be said that they go hand in hand with the establishment of state-owned studios. According to statistics, there were 678 cinemas in old China, more than half of which were concentrated in big cities such as Shanghai, Tianjin, Beiping, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Shenyang, and the number of small and medium-sized cities was very small.

1954 from June to September, a nine-member delegation of leading cadres of the Film Bureau and its studios went to the Soviet Union. After three months' investigation, they returned to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and reported the work report of the film workers' delegation to the Soviet Union. The report was approved by the central government on 1955, and various film studios (departments) began large-scale system construction and adjustment one after another. By 1956, the system construction with the main goal of "independent and complete film production base" was basically completed in the Soviet model. 82 feature films were completed in 1959, and the output decreased while the artistic quality increased. There are nearly 30 excellent and relatively excellent films, accounting for 1/3 of the total. This year was called "Unforgettable 1959" in history of film, New China.

17 There are many ways to divide the film history of New China. As far as the development of the film industry is concerned, it can be divided into two important periods: 1949 from the founding of the people's Republic of China to 1957 when the first five-year plan of the national economy ended, which is the initial stage, initial stage and construction stage; After 1957, after the climax of "ten years of tribute" in 1959, it reached the "rectification movement of the Ministry of Culture" in 1965 and the "Cultural Revolution" in 1966, which were the stages of stability, development and transformation. After 17 years of creation, China films have already owned a huge industry and a strong family background. The third industrialization period of China films is different from the previous two in time and form. After the Cultural Revolution, everything remained to be done. The reform and opening up in the new era quickly saved the film economy on the verge of collapse, and also ushered in another revival of China films. However, the industry ills formed in the past decades have plagued the development of the film industry. The impact of television and various forms of entertainment has made the film industry worse and worse, and reform is imperative. With the deepening of sex reform in China, the film industry began to re-examine the role and power of the market. A series of "breakthroughs" in the 1990s, like domino effect, contributed to institutional changes, and all these were carried out under the power of promoting the marketization process. Therefore, the arrival of this industrial period shows more consciousness than the previous two times.

After entering the 2 1 century, the recognition and cognition of the marketization of the film industry has reached a unified idea in the whole industry, but objectively speaking, it has gone through a process. 1993, 10 "split-account bombshell" came out, 1999, the Sino-US negotiations ended, and the countdown to China's entry into WTO began. These two incidents really taught the ignorant China film industry a "marketing" lesson. Dancing with wolves is a choice that China films have to make. Only in the continuous running-in with international standards can we gradually get the pulse of the market. "Break the horizontal regional boundaries, break the fragmented state of the industry, and conduct vertical asset collection on the basis of large market, large scale, all-round and whole industry, and then reorganize the market and realize a new pattern that conforms to the law of film development." 200 1, with the market concept deeply rooted in people's hearts, the construction plan of "cinema system" was put on the agenda. 12, 18 "detailed rules for the implementation of reforming the film distribution and screening mechanism" was promulgated. After vigorous promotion in 2002 and 2003, in 2004, "36 movie theaters have been built and joined in China. There are 5 theaters with box office receipts exceeding 20 million yuan, and those with box office receipts exceeding 10 million yuan have reached 15 or more. "

After the market positioning of China film industry is determined, the relationship between production, supply and sales formed in the planned economy era needs to be reshuffled. In the film industry itself, the single subject of state-owned enterprises was broken, and private capital and overseas funds began to enter, gradually expanding from the film industry to the distribution and projection industry, showing a diversified trend. In 200 1 year, the China film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon rushed to the Oscars and won many awards, which gave Chinese people unprecedented opportunities and confidence to make China blockbusters. From 200/kloc-0 to 2003, Big shot, Hero, Hero of Heaven and Earth and Mobile Phone with overseas and local investment backgrounds came out one after another, and Hero won 250 million box office. In 2004, House of Flying Daggers, Hoh Xil, world without thieves and Kung Fu, with the same fund portfolio, respectively occupied the top three box office lists, with Kung Fu accounting for 65.438+0.7 billion, House of Flying Daggers accounting for 65.438+0.6 billion and world without thieves accounting for 65.438+0.8. "Sailing with the Water" made China Film finally try to reach the bottom of the sea and began to learn to swim. The first climax

The first climax of China's martial arts action movies appeared in the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, people used to call it "martial arts movies". With the development of China films, the martial arts films reached their first climax. During this period, various martial arts films appeared one after another.

The rapid development of his martial arts films is related to the cultural background and martial arts novels at that time. 1928, Shanghai Star Film Company adapted and produced the martial arts film Burning Red Lotus Temple based on the martial arts novel Legend of the Wonders in the Jianghu. Historically, people have always thought that Burning Red Lotus Temple was the first martial arts film in China.

At that time, the smash hit "Burning Red Lotus Temple" reached its peak in box office and social popularity. In the next three years, in order to meet the requirements of the audience, the sequel to Burning Red Lotus Temple was filmed as many as 18 episodes. Even the current American blockbuster Batman series will feel ashamed. "Burning Red Lotus Temple" is about Liuyang, Hunan Province and Heping River competing for the dock, involving Kunlun School and Kongtong School in Wulin, as well as Red Lotus Temple. There is no need to delve into the plot, but 18 episode "Burning Red Lotus Temple" actually formed the first climax of martial arts action movies in China film history. Later, 1940 and 1993, two more episodes were released in Hong Kong, thus making a total of 20 episodes of Burning Red Lotus Temple.

1929- 193 1 During the period, more than 50 film companies in Shanghai produced more than 250 martial arts films, accounting for 60% of all the films produced.

Due to the Japanese invasion of China, China films suffered great trauma, which also led to the end of the first climax of China martial arts films.

The second climax

The second climax of China's martial arts action films appeared in the late 1950s and 1970s. In the 1960s and 1970s, martial arts action movies, like romance movies, became the two pillars supporting the film industry in Hong Kong and Taiwan. During this period, a group of actors and directors representing the highest level of martial arts action films in this period emerged. For example, Bruce Lee, Sammo Hung and later Jackie Chan and Yuanshi brothers.

1958, Hong Kong Emei Production Company first filmed Jin Yong's Legend of the Condor Heroes and Sword with Royal Blood, and later, martial arts films appeared in Taiwan Province Province, such as 1960 Taiwan Province United Film Company's Seven Heroes and Thirteen Righteousnesses.

1973, China's martial arts action film turned an important page. "The Raptors Crossing the River" is a film written, directed and performed by Bruce Lee. It is recognized as a martial arts action film that successfully explored Europe and entered the world cinema. In the same year, Long Hudou was jointly produced by Bruce Lee and Hollywood Warner Pictures, becoming the first martial arts action film in China to cooperate with foreign film companies. The Game of Death is the last film written, directed and acted by Bruce Lee. Unfortunately, Bruce Lee died before he finished the film.

Since then, although the production of martial arts action films in Hong Kong and Taiwan has continued, the creation, shooting and effect of martial arts action films as a group have gradually declined.

The third climax

The third climax of China's martial arts action films appeared in the early 1980s. 1980, the Beijing Film Studio filmed the mysterious giant Buddha starring Liu Xiaoqing for the first time, which opened a precedent for martial arts action movies. From 65438 to 0982, produced by Kaifeng Performance Company and Hong Kong Lianhua Film Joint Company, Shaolin Temple starring Jet Li really set off the third climax of martial arts action movies. During this period, a large number of martial arts action films were born, such as Shaolin Temple disciples, Wudang disciples and Wu Linzhi of 1983. 1984 young heroes, kapok robes, Wang Wujian, etc. At the same time, martial arts action movies have the significance of blending action movies with national culture.

Martial arts action movies triggered by Chinese mainland and Hong Kong and Taiwan are different. That is to say, in comparison, under the premise of telling stories, it shows more the connotation and ideological edification of a national traditional culture.

In the 1990s, Hong Kong martial arts action films entered a new chapter, 1992 Xinlongmen Inn, 1993 Dong Fangbubai, and the lion king's hegemony had a great influence on China films. In particular, Burning Red Lotus Temple, which was separated by more than half a century, made 20 series in succession at 1993. And "Tanabe" in 1994. All contributed to the third climax of martial arts action movies. Among all the martial arts action films, Huang Feihong, born in Foshan, Guangdong, has reached an unprecedented height. Since 1949' s Biography of Huang Feihong, there have been more than 100 feature films about Huang Feihong's martial arts career.