As with China's first movie theater, China's earliest film
company was established by a Western entrepreneur. China at that time had a
population of about 400 million, less than one-third of what it is now. Then as
now it was regarded as potentially the world's largest movie market. This
market lured a succession of adventurers to China, to exhibit and/or make
motion pictures. After a series of individual filmmaking efforts, China's first
film company was officially established in Shanghai in 1909 by a
Russian-American businessman named Benjamin Brodsky.
While this effort failed, it supplied the equipment and
funding that eased the way for the most representative of China's first
generation of filmmakers, Zhang Shichuan and Zheng Zhengqiu, to join the film
community.
If we want to fix the parameters for the earliest phase of Chinese motion
pictures, then 1909 is undoubtedly the key beginning. Two major events occurred
in that year: one, the Fengtai Photo Studio was destroyed in a fire,
effectively putting its owner out of the movie business; second, the
aforementioned Benjamin Bradsky established the Asia Film Company. While it
would seem these two events are unconnected, later scholarship has noted a
cause-and-effect relationship: the removal of the sole Beijing studio eased the
transition to Shanghai as China's film capital.
They may be no more than historical speculations, but there have
been a variety of theories and explanations regarding the fire that destroyed
the Feng Tai facility. Regardless of its causes, the calamity did result in
shifting China's filmmaking from the relatively colorless environment of
Beijing to the vibrant and pulsating environment of Shanghai. It is also
certain that the removal of their sole rival left a clear field for Chinese and
foreign entrepreneurs to set up shop in Shanghai and create the competitive
environment that nurtured and developed China's movie industry for the next
three decades. In the first two years of the Asia Film Company's existence, its
growth even drew the notice of the Qing government: in the summer of 1911,
Shanghai's local authorities made public its "Regulations on Control of
Shadow Plays," a set of regulations concerning the exhibition and viewing
of motion pictures, China's first, fledgling attempt at movie censorship.
As did many other foreign fortune-seekers,
Brodsky hoped that the risk for an outsider in China would be lessened by
exploiting things which were new and unfamiliar to the country, and some of
these people became key figures in changing the course of China's motion
picture development. In fact, the Asia Film Company could not be regarded as
particularly successful in its operations, nor was Brodsky as financially
successful as those foreign entrepreneurs who, by opening and operating movie
theaters, amassed considerable fortunes, ticket by ticket. Viewed from another
angle, the filming activities of Brodsky and Asia Film were the spark that
initiated China's early motion picture era. Some examples: when he shot his
documentary "China" in Beijing, Brodsky became the first Caucasian
permitted to film in the Forbidden City; his short film "Stealing the
Roast Duck," made with Hong Kong investment, has always been considered
the film that initiated Hong Kong filmmaking; and when Brodsky later returned
home, he took with him the film "Zhuangzi Tests His Wife," making it
the first exported Chinese movie.
The year 1912 marked the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the
founding of the Republic of China. The significance of these events throughout
the country was far from clear. Brodsky, concerned that the turbulent situation
in China might have a negative impact on cinema, took the opportunity to
transfer ownership of the Asia Film Co. to two other foreign businessmen, managers
of the Shanghai offices of an American insurance company. Their actual names
are lost to history: Chinese sources transliterate their names as
"Yi-shi-er" (Isher?) and "Sa-fei." After closing on the
sale, Brodsky departed for Hong Kong, and later to the U.S, spending some time
in Los Angeles and eventually settling in San Francisco. A year later, the
political situation had basically stabilized, and after having shut the studio
down for a year, Isher re-opened Asia Film's operations. He also hired two Chinese,
Zhang Shichuan and Zheng Zhengqiu, to run a newly-established studio, the
Xinmin (New People) Company, while the parent Asia Film Company assumed
responsibility for investment, distribution and supplying filmmaking equipment.
The Asia Film Company's management style offered a new
operational pattern for Chinese movies: foreign investors, Chinese operators.
Even today one has to conclude this was a good collaborative model: it created
among domestic audiences a sense of identification with the movie; it minimized
investors' economic risk. At the same time, it allowed Chinese filmmakers to
amass a great deal of valuable experience and avoided a great many particular
problems that might be created by the foreigners making the movies themselves.
This model, in which investment and distribution are separate from filmmaking
operations, is still widely used today, a notable example being the long,
pre-merger collaboration of Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios.
In addition, the Xinmin company set a precedent by
signing its actors to contracts, which laid out very clear-cut stipulations for
what was required of actors while working on a film, and this also provided
some worthwhile examples for Chinese movie mechanisms to draw upon in the days
to come. Under these mechanisms, the Asia Film Company and its Minxin studio
filmed more than 10 movies, right up to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
[Filming at the Asia Film Co. at its studio on Shanghai's Hong Kong Road. Click on picture to enlarge]
