The Chinese Mirror

《The Expendables 2》Opens in China

    This past Tuesday, September 4, was opening day for《The Expendables 2》in China, an event much-anticipated by many filmgoers there.  This was not only because mindless Hollywood action films are as popular there as elsewhere in the world (I suspect such films are made with the overseas proceeds uppermost in mind), but also because of the casting of well-regarded Chinese actress Yu Nan as the first female "Expendable." (We recently posted a translation of an interview with the actress on her experiences making the film.)

  《The Expendables 2》has been retitled《Gansidui 2》敢死队 for mainland release, a title more indicative of the movie's content for Chinese audiences.  Translated into English, that means either "Death Squad" or implicitly,"Suicide Squad".  In Taiwan, the release title will be《Yuxue Renwu 2》浴血任务, which translates as "Bloody Mission."

    Unlike in the U.S., where Friday is the usual day for major new releases, Tuesday is the common day in China, since Tuesday is also half-price ticket day, and a common marketing strategy is to release films on that day in order to attract a good first-day box office then use that as a loss-leader, relying on word of mouth to promote later sales.  I haven't been able to find the total number of screens showing it nationwide, but it opened on 92 screens in Beijing alone.  Chinese critics, both professional and amateur, have given it mostly good reviews.  At Mtime.com, the most comprehensive of the various Chinese movie websites, 2,844 subscribers contributed ratings, giving it an average of 7.9 out of a possible 10; at douban.com, another popular review site, out of 6,155 ratings, the average was 3.5 out of a possible 5.  In both cases, the highest rating by category was 8.1 for imagery, while the lowest was 6.4 for plot (no argument there).  The two most common criticisms, which I have also seen expressed in western movie blogs and forums:  1) the advanced ages of some of the action heroes demanded from viewers a bit of what in theater appreciation classes is called "suspension of disbelief," and 2)  disappointment at the brevity of Jet Li's appearance, little more than a cameo, or in Chinese slang, "soy sauce."

    One cast member whose career will probably get a major boost from this is Yu Nan.  (The Chinese release posters -- two of them reproduced here -- include her with the men.)  In addition to the natural pride Chinese audiences would take in seeing one of their own in an important, non-villainous role, critics also noted the poise and demeanor of her character:  as one put it, showing the "wisdom and calm of the Chinese woman."  Decades of being portrayed by Hollywood as evil stereotypes (e.g.《The Thief of Baghdad》and《Welcome Danger》) with the Charlie Chan movies being welcome exceptions, have made the Chinese a bit sensitive in that regard.  In addition, critics expressed approval of Yu Nan's having a significant role, not just a decorative "flower vase," the Chinese equivalent of what Americans call "eye candy."  The day after this film's release  was the actress's birthday, and its success in her home country was probably a welcome present.

1930 -1931: The "Film Censorship Act," and an Expert Interview

Scissors Appear Under the Mercury Lamps 

    As more than one film scholar has noted, Chinese movies in their earliest phase  were merely a superficial, insignificant form of entertainment having gone through the  three dominant phases of the 1920s:  slapstick comedy shorts, "Mandarin ducks and butterflies" romances, and martial arts fantasies, successively.  But in the topic of this article, the 1931 "Film Censorship Act," these "shadow play activities" were not even regarded as art.　While large-scale entry into the market made movies a "tool for the global exchange of ideas" in the eyes of filmmakers, the announcement of the censorship act in November, 1930 (enactment was deferred until January, 1931) added a pair of scissors to the market "sword" already hanging over the head of the Chinese movie industry.

Acrobatics on Ice

    The specific reasons spurring the Nationalist Government to formulate the Film Censorship Act are still unclear to this day.  Left-wing filmmakers wanted to attribute the government action to its need to repress dissent, but while many have believed this to be true, and while it may have been (at least partially) true, it does not sum up the whole picture of why such a law was introduced.

    It is noteworthy in this regard that in the same year the Film Censorship Act was introduced, the most sensational event in the Chinese film world was the storm of protest that erupted following the release of the American film《Welcome Danger》, considered as "insulting to the Chinese people" by Shanghai municipal agencies, which  eventually banned it.  To calm the storm and protect its growing China market the Paramount studio pulled all copies of《Welcome Danger》from the country, and took out full-page newspaper ads of apology.  In the months following the incident it soon became evident the Chinese government was taking a hard line stance on foreign films.  To take 1934 as an example, in that year the government censorship standards were revised, and under this new set of rules, 9 films were banned, 6 of which were American, twice the number of domestic films banned.  The central film authorities of the Nationalist government announced they would "pay attention to foreign films having topics insulting to China," and sent a delegation led by the Lianhua studio's chief executive Luo Mingyou to the US to communicate with American filmmakers, in an effort to prevent a similar incident from recurring.  During that time, MGM was preparing the script for the film adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's novel The Good Earth, and the Chinese side reviewed the script and suggested changes, plus there were Chinese observers present during the filming.  These actions which followed the introduction of the censorship law makes it clear how important the preservation of national dignity was to both sides.  Beyond this, however, repression of dissent and stifling the proliferation of martial arts fantasies were the other two of three major themes behind the campaign to preserve traditional moral standards.

    So in 1930, the 25th anniversary of Chinese motion pictures, Chinese filmmakers found themselves in a situation similar to that of a figure skater performing acrobatic leaps, jumps and spins on ice, moving at high speed while trying on the one hand to keep the body in balance, while still paying attention to the actual situation underfoot.  Fear of movies' effects and the popular mania for them had been on a collision course, and when they finally collided the Film Censorship Act was the result, laying down strict conditions which severely restricted what filmmakers could show on screen.  For example, the section of the act dealing with things "prejudicial to public order or dignity," included nine provisions prohibiting such things as propaganda for another country, harming the image of the Chinese people, denigrating the current government of the Republic of China, performing in a way adverse to the customs of Chinese nation or people, ridiculing the commonly admired sages of the past or a currently famous person, showing scenes of opium or morphine use, etc., etc.

[The following is a translation of an interview which was published in the Beijing News on May 15, 2004.  The interviewee, Wang Zhaoguang 汪朝光, is a Research Associate in the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Institute of Modern History.  Doctor Wang is one of China's leading historians specializing on the Republican period (1912-1949), and many of his numerous publications have dealt with the film hstory of that era.  The original interview is still on-line at several Chinese news sites.  The interview was conducted for the Beijing News by journalistic intern Zhang Yue 张悦]

Anti-fantasy, But Also Anti-Hollywood       [right, Wang Zhaoguang]

    The implementation of the "Film Censorship Act" was far-reaching, because from that point on, Chinese motion pictures were no longer seen as simply a means of entertainment, and were now labeled with the official seal of the law as a form of commerce.  But after brushing off the dust of history, what after all did these new regulations do for movies?  To find the answer, this reporter interviewed an expert, Wang Zhaoguang, of the CASS Institute of Modern History.

Beijing News:  What sort of societal context gave birth to China's earliest censorship system, the Film Censorship Act?

Wang Zhaoguang:  The earliest foreign films seen in China were fundamentally documentary in nature, but they didn't draw widespread attention due to technical and exhibition limitations.  Then about 1910 films began being shown in all of China's large cities, their impact extended, and even a succession of foreign detective films began to exhibited.  And although during the time the Northern warlords were in control, there were some calling for restrictions on their screening, there was no specific implementation.  In 1927, before the Nationalist government took office, some local film regulations appeared in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, but that still didn't close all doors.

Beijing News:  What were the various reasons why the national government promulgated the Film Censorship Act?

Wang Zhaoguang:  Three reasons, mainly:  first, a movie requires a certain amount of control during its production, because otherwise the movie might go astray; second, the national government called the "Three Principles of the People" the nation's foundation; and third, there was a growing opposition to martial arts fantasy films, which were very popular but were producing many negative effects.  An additional reason was the uncontrolled entry of Hollywood films into China, and the authorities disapproved of this.  These reasons all contributed ultimately to the introduction of the Film Censorship Act.

Beijing News:  We know that in the United States in 1930 The Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) drafted the famous "Hays Code," while our Film Censorship Act was introduced almost simultaneously.  The two were similar in some places and different in others; how do you view this?

Wang Zhaoguang:  There are basically two film censorship systems in the world:  the one is that used in England, the United States and other countries, which stresses film censorship through "industry self-regulation," like the Hays Code basically used market forces as the means of constraint; another, used in the former Soviet Union, Japan, China and other countries is the system set by government agencies, and is basically mandatory.

Beijing News:  Was the Film Censorship Act effective at the time of implementation?  And what were the reactions of the major film studios?

Wang Zhaoguang:  The effects of the law were quite obvious, as it made a number of sharp constraints mandatory for the four types of prohibited films.  And, according to the historical records on film, some studios were disgruntled because, they were, after all, losing some economic benefits, but in general, opposition to the Film Censorship Act was pretty muted.  [Beijing News editorial note:  some film companies that had specialized in movies dealing with supernatural topics were forced to accommodate their productions to the new policy.  As of 1933, a small number of fantasy films were being released, but these were concentrated in outlying provinces where central government control was weaker.]

Beijing News:  What do you believe was the significance of the Film Censorship Act for Chinese cinema?

Wang Zhaoguang:  As their movie industries have developed, every country has drawn up film censorship regulations to a certain extent, and also regulated their industries.  Our movie censorship system was special because it was the product of a definite historical period, that is to say, it meshed closely with society's needs at that time.  Another special aspect was the "regionalism" of certain movies, that is, certain scenes which were fashionable at the time could be shown in Shanghai, but would be unacceptable in a relatively isolated city in the interior.  Generally speaking, the film censorship system of the time had a definite positive significance, for without those rules there could be no standards. 

1930: Harold Lloyd, Hong Shen, and the《Welcome Danger》Incident

    An earlier post about early Chinese censorship of films from the West mentioned that comedy legend Harold Lloyd's popularity among Chinese filmgoers throughout the 1920s was surpassed only by that of Charlie Chaplin's.  While Chaplin continued his hold on audiences, Lloyd's marketability in China was severely damaged, if not destroyed, when his first talking picture opened in Shanghai.

  《Welcome Danger》(1929) was originally a silent, but Lloyd kept wavering about whether to keep it that way or make it one of the rapidly-growing number of sound movies coming out of Hollywood studios.  In addition to repeatedly changing his mind on this, he changed the title several times and the casts twice.  At last, two versions - silent and sound - were released, with theaters not yet refitted for sound showing the silent version.  Although reviews at the time were somewhat mixed,《Welcome Danger》became one of the comedy genius's highest-grossing films, in large part because of the anticipation at hearing his voice for the first time.  Even Lloyd's most avid admirers today rank the "talkie" version as one of his lesser productions, but the restored silent version as outstanding, the principal difference being that the verbal jokes were amateurish, while the sight gags worked well.

    The story has Lloyd, a timid botany student, returning to his native San Francisco following the death of his police chief father.  He involves himself with the police, insisting on helping them although they don't want his aid, but he keeps plugging and eventually cracks a big Chinatown drug ring.  There are a lot of hectic comings and goings and battles in dark Chinatown cellars.

    For China release, the movie was retitled《Bupa Si》(不怕死 Unafraid of Death),  and given the star's popularity in China, plus the fact Hollywood sound films were playing to packed houses in Shanghai, Lloyd's production studio Paramount booked it into two of the city's largest and finest sound-equipped theaters, the Grand and the Capitol.      

    Among the Grand Theater audience on the evening of February 22nd was the Mingxing Film Company's writer-director Hong Shen, the American-educated "father of the Chinese screenplay," as well as a respected professor at Fudan and Jinan Universities.  Hong had also been one of the returned overseas Chinese students who founded the Great Wall movie studio as a reaction to the portrayal of Chinese in American films.  As《Bupa Si》went on, with its depictions of the Chinese gang as evil, vicious and ruthless criminals, practically a race of subhumans, Hong Shen could at last take no more.  He left his seat, mounted the theater's stage, and delivered an extemporaneous speech denouncing the movie as a disgrace and insult to the Chinese people.   

    Many others in the large audience agreed with him, as several hundred of them streamed to the box office to demand refunds.  Fearful of the situation getting out of hand, the panicked theater operators called police, who detained Hong Shen for three hours.

    Immediately following his release, Hong submitted a protest to the Chinese central government authorities in Nanjing, demanding the film be banned, and all copies which had been shipped to China be publicly burned.  His call for a boycott of《Welcome Danger》aroused a strong response among a broad cross-section of the Shanghai public,  with prominent figures in education, journalism, culture, drama and movie circles, as well as many ordinary people, flooding the newspapers with letters protesting the exhibition of the movie, including some dark hints at possible violent consequences if the film were not withdrawn. 

    Eight major Shanghai dramatic associations, including those of the top universities, issued a joint declaration firmly supporting Hong Shen, calling his action a patriotic one.  In addition to branding the U.S. movie an insult to the Chinese people, the declaration warned that if a similar event should occur, the masses of the people might rise up and enforce their own ban.  This was followed by a similar warning from two advisory agencies of the Shanghai municipal government.  In the face of so strong a public protest, the ruling Nationalist Party's Shanghai propaganda bureau and the city of Shanghai jointly announced the film's banning by the Film Censorship Board.

    The Grand Theater reacted to this by suing Hong Shen for its loss of income.  But when the case came to trial on March 13, Hong Shen exploited the situation by using the courtroom as his forum for a counter-attack, accusing the Grand Theater of abetting U.S. cultural aggression.  His impassioned speech in court won the sympathy of the gallery.  As news of the trial and the incident which provoked it spread throughout China, Paramount apparently decided it was time to pull back from the confrontation, lest their access to the Chinese market's vast potential suffer permanent harm.  In early April, numerous Chinese newspapers carried large ads in which the Grand Theater  apologized to Hong Shen, and Paramount expressed its "heartfelt apology" for "daring to insult your honorable country."  In addition, the studio promised that every copy of the film that had been shipped to China would be returned to America, and never again be shown in China.  

    For the Chinese, this was a satisfactory conclusion and a victory in their ongoing struggle against cultural imperialism.

1929: "Captain Swagger" Brings Sound to Shanghai

    Public showing of sound films began in the US in 1926 on a largely trial basis, and two years later the experiment was declared a success.  Before 1929, Shanghai movie houses lacked the equipment for exhibiting sound motion pictures, but after sound films were successful abroad, Shanghai theaters began planning for the necessary equipment in order to meet the demand.
    On January 7, 1929, a French ocean liner docked in Shanghai.  Among its passengers was American electrical engineer J. P. Koehler, Chief Installation Engineer for the RCA Photophone Company, and bringing his company's best sound projection equipment.  Koehler was on a Grand Tour of Pacific Rim countries installing this apparatus (1), and China was his first stop.  This equipment, the first such in Asia, was installed at the Embassy Theater《夏令配克影戏院》in Shanghai, which began showing sound films on February 9, 1929.  The Embassy's first offering was Pathe's  "Captain Swagger," starring Rod La Rocque and Sue Carol, and retitled for Chinese release as《Feixing Jiangjun 飞行将军》[The Flying General].  This was an early entry in what became a popular 1930s series, the adventures of Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, (called for some reason "Drummong" throughout the contemporary NY Times review).  The Times reviewer described "Captain Swagger" as basically a silent film with synchronized music and a special effects soundtrack, a technique later utilized during China's own period of transition to sound production, as in 1934's "The Big Road."   

[Left, the Embassy theater, venue for the first "talkie" shown in Shanghai. Right, Rod Laroque and Sue Carol in a scene from "Captain Swagger."  Click on any image to view full size.]

    For the better part of 1929, the Embassy had the Shanghai sound movie market all to itself; but the city's other top-tier theaters immediately began their own preparations to acquire and install the sound equipment that would allow them to compete, although the cost of such equipment was very high.  But by year's end, all were proudly offering "talkies" from the West.  These high-level theaters' first offerings, with their premiere showing dates, are as follows [Note:  Shanghai movie houses often had, in addition to their Chinese names, English names which were not necessarily translations of the Chinese; both are provided here]:

    The relatively new (built in 1928) Grand Theater《Da Guangming 大光明》 exhibited its first sound movie on September 3.  Its first offering was Warner Brothers "The Singing Fool," starring Al Jolson.  The co-feature at the Grand was a newsreel, a speech by Nationalist Government Chairman Chiang Kai-shek [Jiang Jieshi 蒋介石]. 
    The Capitol《Guanglu 光陆》Theater followed suit a few days later, showing its first sound movie on September 7.  Its first offering was Paramount's "The Canary Murder Case," starring William Powell and Louise Brooks in the first of a long series of "Philo Vance" mysteries.
    The Carlton《Kaerdeng 卡尔登》began exhibiting sound films on September 13.  Its first offering was "Alibi," a crime drama from United Artists studio which was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Chester Morris), and only five months removed from its US premiere.
    The Odeon《Aodian 奥迪安》was the last of the high-level theaters to get in the game, showing its first sound movie on December 5.  Its first was Paramount's "The Patriot," directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Emil Jannings.
    After this, as sound movie technology developed, the medium and small-sized Shanghai theaters followed, acquiring and installing the necessary sound equipment, and of course every new theater built after that had the capability from day one.  It would be a couple of years until Shanghai studios began turning out their own sound movies, but it was only a matter of time.

Note 1:  By that fall he had reached New Zealand, with the Wellington Majestic Theater being that country's first sound venue.  (Wellington Evening Post, October 11, 1929, p.8)  

**********
Sources:

Dai, Jingting (戴靖婷).  "Witnessing the rise and fall of Chinese films:  a century of Chinese cinema changes."  February 10, 2005 Xinwen Zhoukan (News Weekly).

Huang, Zhiwei (黄志伟), ed.-in-chief.  Lao Shanghai Dianying (Old Shanghai Movies).  Wenhui Press, 1998.

Jiang, Bin (姜玢).  "1930s Shanghai movie theaters and social culture."  Arts Monthly, 2002-11, pp.67-71.

________.  "Gazing at modernization:  the Hollywood factor in Shanghai's 1930s and 1940s movie culture."  Historical Review 2002-03, pp.98-105.

Yang, Jinfu (杨金福), ed.  Shanghai Dianying Bainian Tushu 1905-2005 (Shanghai Movie Centennial Pictorial 1905-2005).  Shanghai:  Wenhui Press, 2006.

Zhongguo Dianying Tushu (1905-2005) (China Movie Pictorial 1905-2005).  Beijing:  China Communications University Press, 2006.

Two Foreign Pioneers of Chinese Cinema

    A seller on eBay recently was offering a bit of China's early movie history for auction, a 1913 postcard which documented the existence of a relationship, and apparently the friendship, between two early European movie pioneers in Shanghai, Antonio Ramos and A.E. Lauro.  It brought to mind the contributions of these two men, both in popularizing motion pictures among the Chinese, as well as providing some stimulus to China's own embryonic film industry.

[below, the entrance to Antonio Ramos's Hongkew Cinema.  The photo is undated, but the picture billed as the current offering, "Victory" provides a clue:  there was a 1913 American production with that title, made in the same year the Hongkew opened.  There was a later, 1919 production titled "Victory," but by the time it could have been exhibited in China, the theater had been renamed to be the Hongkew Grand Theater, so this was probably the earlier film]

       Antonio Ramos, a Spaniard, had arrived in China early in the last century to set up a mercantile enterprise.  That business prospered, so in 1908 he decided to grow it by diversifiying into the motion picture exhibition business.  He bought a roller rink at a busy Shanghai intersection and converted it into a movie house with a seating capacity of 250.  Called the Hongkew Motion Picture Theater, it opened for business on December 22, 1908.  The first picture shown was a foreign film that Chinese sources list as "Long Chao" (龙巢) which means "Dragon's Nest" (or lair, or den).  The only title in the IMDB that comes remotely close to that for 1908 or earlier is "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest" (1908), but we don't know for certain.  Ramos operated the Hongkew until 1913, when he sold it to a Japanese businessman.  The following year Ramos opened a large movie house called Emlassg Theater, which opened for business on September 8, with a French feature, exact title also unknown.  He opened two more Shanghai theaters in 1917, and by 1921 had become the central figure in foreign film exhibiting across China:  in addition to owning six Shanghai-area theaters himself, he organized the Ramos Entertainment Company, a large exhibition network based in Shanghai.  By this time, the Chinese movie market was wholly controlled by foreigners.  Foreigners continued their efforts to make movies in Shanghai, but with the exception of Benjamin Brodsky's Asia Film & Theater Company, none of these enjoyed any degree of success.    

    On the other hand, the Italian A.E. Lauro had also come to China in 1907, originally to get into the film exhibition business, but soon became intrigued with the idea of shooting films.  He acquired a camera with a wooden case and made several newsreel documentaries.  We have records of four of his productions, made between 1908 and 1911, but the actual number he made of these is unknown.

     Foreign control of the Chinese exhibition market actually contributed greatly to the development of China's domestic filmmaking industry:  while the country's earliest movie theaters were buildings adapted or converted from other functions, starting in the 1920s Shanghai began seeing the construction of theaters specifically designed for movies.  Most of these were funded largely or wholly by Hollywood studios, as venues for showing their own movies.  This duplicated the U.S. pattern of that time, where the major studios owned theater chains.  So Warner Bros. films would be shown at one theater, Columbia's at another, Universal's at a third, etc.  In China these theaters were also free to show domestically-produced films between the Hollywood productions, and that's where most of the major Chinese movies premiered.  In this way, Shanghai's fledgling and cash-strapped studios were free to concentrate on making movies and building their own market.

Charlie Chaplin: One Night in Shanghai

INTRODUCTION

 

    A bowler hat on his head and a small cane in hand, wearing an ill-fitting, shabby tuxedo and oversized shoes ... a pinch of black mustache beneath his nose ... a duck-like waddle ...  Charlie Chaplin's "Little Tramp" on-screen image was unmistakable, as instantly recognized throughout the world as Mickey Mouse.

    Chaplin was enormously popular throughout the world, with China among the many countries where audiences loved his films.  Chinese historical records indicate his films were being shown there as early as 1919.  His films meshed perfectly with Chinese audiences' tastes at the time, as slapstick comedy shorts were the dominant genre of China's own nascent movie industry in the early 1920s.  Even after China's own filmmakers supplanted comedy with other genres later in that decade  ("mandarin ducks and butterflies" romances, then martial arts fantasies), the comedies of Chaplin and other Hollywood silent comics remained popular imports throughout the silent era.

    I have already written about a Chinese comedy short, a Chaplin homage, which related a fictional visit of the comedy legend to Shanghai, with a Chaplin impersonator portraying the "King of Comedy."  But Chaplin himself finally visited China's movie capital in 1936, and the Shanghai movie community's welcome on that occasion was no less enthusiastic than it had been in the fictional version.

 

BACKGROUND

 

    In early 1936, Charlie Chaplin had just completed filming his first sound film, "Modern Times," after which he embarked on a round-the-world cruise with his leading lady and fiancee, Paulette Goddard.  This was not the first time Chaplin had sailed to, or at least approached, Shanghai:  in 1931, after completing "City Lights," he and his brother Sydney went to London for the premiere, then traveled through Europe and India to Japan, a 16 month trip during which he met, successively, with Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Einstein, Gandhi and others.  After Japan, they sailed back to the U.S. on a second vessel which docked in Shanghai, but Chaplin chose not to leave the ship.  For his 1936 trip, Chaplin went in the opposite direction, planning to sail first to Asia and then on to Europe.

    How the news of Chaplin's approach reached Shanghai is a bit of a mystery, as the actor's itinerary was a closely-guarded secret, even in the U.S.  In fact, not until he arrived in Honolulu was it was learned he was accompanied by Miss Goddard.  However, the news reached Shanghai on March 8 that a US ship, the President Coolidge, was approaching the city and that one of the passengers aboard was the world-famous and much-loved comic.  The city's film community was abuzz with the news, and hasty preparations to greet him began immediately.  But a possible flaw in this was the question of whether Chaplin would get off the ship, which would dock there for less than 24 hours, leaving early the next morning.  The itinerary was secret as he had wanted a quiet, relaxing holiday, free of the mobs of reporters who besieged him whenever he traveled outside the U.S.  This time would be no different, as there were already more than 40 Chinese and foreign journalists at the dock at noon, before the Coolidge had even entered the harbor.  For some reason, there were no local movie celebrities at the dock, perhaps because the visit had caught the studios a bit by surprise; in any case, they made up for it that evening, especially considering they had only 24 hours to prepare.  (It later turned out that Chaplin's original itinerary was:  "Sail from California to Honolulu and then across to Japan.  One day's stopover in Shanghai, then depart for Hong Kong on the same ship.  Change ship in Hong Kong and go on to Manila, Bali and Indo-China."  At last, passage "through the Suez Canal to Paris."  The entire trip was to take five months.)

1921-22: Four Early Movie Magazines

    In an earlier post, we discussed 1921-22's "Motion Picture Review", which was the first Chinese film magazine to discuss China's own domestic movie output.  During that same two-year period, four other film periodicals were published, and one of them actually predated the "Review", although it ignored China's fledgling movie industry.  Like the "Review", three of these were short-lived, although one had a lengthy run well into the 1930s.

1930s Censorship of Western Films

    Besides producing a film and getting it into the distribution and exhibition market, an important  phase in the process was the review of films before release, a function performed jointly by the Chinese government working with the studios, sometimes post-release in reaction to public opinion.  After the Nationalist Party unified China in 1927, the central government established a board of review similar to the later Hays Office in the U.S.  Unlike the Hays Production Code, however, the Chinese review board’s mandate covered foreign films, which still dominated the Chinese market.
    It is interesting to note which foreign movies were banned by the board during its existence, which lasted right up until the outbreak of war with Japan in 1937.  One of the criteria by which a foreign movie could be banned for distribution in China was whether it looked down upon or was hostile to the Chinese people or portrayed them in a negative manner.  Sometimes the films were banned after they had been released in Chinese theaters, in reaction to public outcry.  Perhaps the most famous incidence of this occurred around 1930, when Shanghai audiences' reaction to Harold Lloyd’s “Welcome Danger” threatened to result in violence.  “Thief of Baghdad” (1924) was banned retroactively, although when it had been released a few years earlier, public opinion was fairly evenly mixed regarding its Asian characters.  Some other 1930s Western imports banned for their portrayals of China or the Chinese included:  “Shanghai Express,” “Tod über Shanghai” ("Death Over Shanghai"); “The Bitter Tea of General Yan” “The Cat’s Paw” (another Harold Lloyd), and the joint German-Japanese production “Atarashiki tsuchi/Die Tochter des Samurai” ("The New Earth").  Examples of American films banned  during this era for reasons other than their portrayal of the Chinese image were 1931’s “Frankenstein,” and 1932’s “Forgotten Commandments” and “High Society.”  The grounds given for blocking distribution of the first two was they carried an aura of “superstition,” and the third for having “pornographic content.”