As a distinctly Chinese film industry began, the entrepreneurs who established these studios realized that reliance on stage actors, steeped in classical opera, would not suffice for this new medium. So they started their own schools to train and build up a personnel pool for this specific industry.
In 1922, when Chinese cinema pioneers Zhang Shichuan and Zheng Zhengqiu got together with bookman Zhou Jianyun, stage actor Zheng Zhegu and educator Ren Jinping to establish the Mingxing (Star) Film Company, they were well aware that in order to make good movies, it was essential they have good actors. While the earliest Chinese films had drawn upon the country's large pool of veteran stage performers, the founders knew this was not the ideal situation, and came up with the idea of starting their own film school. So when they founded the company, they also set up the "Mingxing School of Motion Picture Drama," located on Pu Shi Road in Shanghai, the first school in China to specialize in training actors for the screen. Zheng Zhengqiu was the first principal, but his heavy filmmaking commitments soon led him to step aside, with Zhou Jianyun assuming the post, and Zheng Zhegu taking over the school's administrative affairs. Mingxing's stated aim for the school was to discover and nurture its own acting talent, in the hope that this "film acting talent will progressively develop to the point where it can replace stage performers and people specially hired from the West." Also, "every class will place great emphasis on its screen aspects."
The opening of the Mingxing school initiated a series of imitators. According to the 1927 China Cinema Yearbook, in Shanghai alone there were 18 film schools of various types, and while many young people wanted to take advantage of the opportunity these schools offered to get into movies, most of them encountered opposition from the heads of their families, who believed that the Chinese and foreign film communities were overflowing cesspools of evil, and refused to send their children to study film acting, especially their daughters. Even so, the easy path to fame and fortune offered by motion pictures attracted considerable numbers of educated young people and young stage actors. To further increase their source of supply, some film schools offered incentives to potential students, such as free room and board. Over the course of its existence the Zhonghua (China) Film School, established in 1924 on Aiduoya Road (today's East Yan'an Road), enrolled over 1,500 students.
Standard film schools could boast of complete equipment, solid teaching strength and rich course content. For example, in 1924 the Changming (Prosperity) Movie Correspondence School offered five major courses: Screenwriting, Directing, Acting, Cinematography and Makeup. The following year, it published its teaching materials in book form, the earliest such publication in China, and quickly became must reading for actors of that time. The Zhonghua Film School (headed by the director/screenwriter/actor Hong Shen 洪深), added courses in the history of modern Western drama and training in singing and dancing, and showed its students two free movies from Western countries per week, to "observe advanced studies." The most prestigious schools had very rigorous examinations, for example one of the Mingxing School's written exams asked, "Of the eyes, the mouth, the hands, the feet and the body, which do you believe is most important in a dramatic performance? In how many ways do the eyes express one's feelings? What is dull acting? What is overacting? ... "
Most of the schools adopted the accelerated method of teaching, with six months being the typical program length. However, some schools took a more long-range view, with programs that could run for three years, five years, and even longer. Since the futures of their parent studios depended upon the schools' succeeding in their educational missions, they assumed considerable responsibility for their students' educations, for example such leading personalities of the Mingxing Studio as Zheng Zhengqiu, Zhou Jianyun and Zhang Zhegu were personally involved in teaching at the studio's school. They had considerable practical experience in actual filmmaking, and their students fully appreciated that they were being trained by the very best the movie industry had to offer. These teachers had a professional attitude towards their teaching. For example, Zheng Zhegu died in 1925, only three years after the school was founded, and when his health began to fail he continued meeting with his classes every day. When he at last became too ill to work, he still remembered to write the school requesting leave and suggesting someone who might take his classes. Cinematographer Wang Xuchang, who had studied filmmaking in France after World War I, taught his classes in the evening, served concurrently as school principal, and worked on movies during the day. His schedule was so busy he would often go without eating.
The schools were very successful, and from the 1920s on provided a pipeline of talent for China's motion picture studios. To take just a few examples, the Zhonghua School trained the famous film actresses Xu Qinfang and the young woman who eventually came to be known as Hu Die 蝴蝶 (aka "Butterfly Wu"). These two co-starred in more than 30 films, including "Qiu Shan Yuan (Resentments), "Hong Hudie" (Red Butterfly), "Qiangjiang Nüxia" (Qiang River Heroine), and "Manyuanchunse" (Spring is Everywhere). The Mingxing School produced the actor/director Wang Jiting, whose 55 films included such early classics as "Kong Gu Lan" (Lonely Orchid), "Genü Hong Mudan" (Singing Girl Red Peony), and "Ti Xiao Yinyuan" (Cause for Tears and Laughter). Also products of the Mingxing School were Wang Xianzhai, China's number one screen villain, actress Zhou Wenzhu, whose 36 films included "Huan Wo Shanhe" (Give Back Our Country) and "Yeban Gesheng" (Song at Midnight). Other performers well-known in that era who came from the Mingxing School were actors Mei Jia, Shao Zhuanglin (one of the Shaw Brothers of later Hong Kong cinema legend) and Li Qing, and actress Yuan Shaomei. One actress trained at the Minxin (Heart of the People) Studio's school was Li Dandan, who became a national sensation when she starred in several silents during the 20s, and later achieved even greater renown as one of the first Chinese aviatrices. The Da Zhonghua (Great China) Film School produced Tang Jie, whose many films included directing and acting in the "Wang Xiansheng" (Mr. Wang) series, which were very popular with Chinese audiences of the 1930s.
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Faculty and Students at the Minxin Film School, ca1925. First on the left in the front row is Li Dandan, who went on to a long and distinguished second career as an aviator. Fourth from the right in that row is the director Hou Yao, executed by the Japanese army in 1942.
