By 1925, Chinese movie studios were turning out a full product line of motion pictures, many of them including filmmakers' social messages while entertaining the moviegoing public. As noted earlier, in 1925 these studios completed and released 54 full-length features (usually defined as one which is 4 or more reels in length. i.e. more than 30 minutes), and only 8 shorts. Mingxing again led the way, with 9 features, and 29 other studios churned out the rest.
To this point, we have been listing in our archival (filmography) categories all films released in a particular year. But the growing annual production output makes a total listing an impracticality. So with this post we initiate a new series, The Chinese Mirror Film Awards, recognizing the most noteworthy motion pictures of China's classical era, year by year. These awards are a total conceit, an invention of the editor's imagination, as China did not actually start bestowing awards on its motion pictures until the 1962 Hundred Flowers Awards. There were two fan votes prior to that, the "Four Great Dan" election of 1926, and the 1934 election to determine the "Emperor and Empress" of movies, but these were votes to choose fans' favorite performers, not best pictures as judged by industry professionals. While the Mirror awards are wholly imaginary, there is a sound basis for singling out these particular films for distinction: these are the movies which crop up repeatedly in Chinese film histories, and are cited in such standard film references as The Chinese Cinema Encyclopaedia (Shanghai, 1995) as being among the nation's best early productions.
The eligibility rules are as follows:
1. In determining to which year a film belongs, "year of release" is the operative phrase. The uniform practice among Chinese scholars is to list a film by year of production, whereas Western sources (e.g. the The Internet Movie Database) usually list a film by its initial release in country of origin, regardless of when made. So our years may differ from those given in Chinese sources. This practice will be followed in all subsequent Chinese Mirror posts: if a film's actual release date can be determined with certainty, that film will be counted as being from that year, otherwise we will follow the Chinese sources.
2. Since we have no box office or attendance figures to draw on, let alone a vote by the "members of the academy", the films are not ranked, but are listed in alphabetical order.
3. All of this year's nominees are lost films, so there will be no effort to avoid "spoilers," by giving away plot twists or endings.
So without further ado, the envelopes please. And the nominees are:
Aishende Wanou (1925) 爱伸的玩偶 (Cupid's Puppets)
Changcheng (Great Wall). 9 reels. Direction: Mei Xuechou, Hou Yao. Screenplay: Pu Shunqing. Cinematography: Cheng Peilin. Cast: Zhang Xiuying (Ming Guoying), Lei Xiadian (Luo Renjun), Liu Jiqun (Yu Ren), Xing Banmei (Mrs. Yu), Xing Shaomei (Ming Qun), Zhai Qiqi (Luo Renda), Chen Yimeng (Mother Luo), Bao Mengjiao (Qin Liweng), Huo Meili (Qin Yuzhen), Huang Huanu (Wang Sheng), Yang Yinqiao (Yu Yanzhi), Du Nanfei (Hu Gan), Wang Manying (Jia Qin).
[Comment: this was an early feminist film, blasting the feudal system of arranged marriages. Scriptwriter Pu Shunqing was co-director Hou Yao's wife, and was Chinese cinema's first female screenwriter.]
When Ming Guoying rejects an arranged marriage to her stepmother's nephew Yu Ren, she is driven from the family home. On her own, she finds a position as an elementary school teacher in another city, and during a summer vacation visit with old school friend Luo Renda, she meets and falls in love with her friend's brother Luo Renjun. He reciprocates her feelings, but the two cannot marry, because under the laws of the time her forced engagement to Yu Ren takes precedence,. Their sorrows mount when a man comes to town claiming to be Renjun's father-in-law: according to the stranger's story, 20 years earlier he and Renjun's late father had arranged an infant engagement, vowing that one day the son of one would marry the daughter of the other. Now he has arrived with his daughter in tow, intent on concluding the marriage. Renjun firmly rejects this, but when his mother says the violation of feudal tradition would result in so great a loss of face she would kill herself, the young man has no choice but to agree. Meanwhile, back in Shanghai, Guoying's fiance Yu Ren has openly taken a prostitute as his mistress, and when Guoying's father berates the young man about his conduct, unacceptable for his future son-in-law, Yu Ren laughingly declares that he never wanted the arranged marriage and has no intention of going through with it. This so shocks the older man he collapses, mortally stricken. When Guoying learns of his illness, she tells Renjun she must hurry to see her father one last time, and leaves for Shanghai. But when Yu Ren learns that Guoying will come into a large inheritance upon her father's death, he decides to conceal his attempt to break the engagement and marry the girl anyway. Fearing she will flee again, he bribes the shady operators of an insane asylum to have the girl forcibly committed, planning to enforce the marriage contract after the period of mourning for her father has elapsed. Worried that he has heard nothing from Guoying, Renjun goes to Shanghai to look for her, and with the help of a loyal family servant, finds where she is being held against her will. He raids the asylum and rescues Guoying. The young lovers take this to be a sign from Cupid, and leave to start a new life together.
*
Bukan Huishou (1925) 不堪回首 (Unbearable Memories)
Shenzhou. B&W. Silent. 8 reels. Premiered February 25, 1925 at the Shanghai Theater. Direction and Screenplay: Qiu Qixiang. Cinematography: Wang Xuchang. Art: Qiu Yiwei. Cast: Ding Ziming (He Suyun), Zhao Jingxia (Ding Xiujuan), Li Pingqian (Zhu Guangwen), Li Minghui (Xiu Juanshu), Yan Gongshang (Old Mr. Ding), Wen Shaoru (Old Mr. He). [below right, Ding Ziming]
A vagrant young man stranded in a rural area during wartime is rescued by a vegetable grower and his young daughter. They given him refuge for a time, during which the boy (Li Pingqian) and the daughter (Ding Ziming) fall in love. He leaves for the city to find work, vowing that one day he will return a success and the young couple will marry. In the city, he becomes the secretary to a very wealthy man, and soon falls under the spell of wealth, sumptuous food and drink, and a luxurious lifestyle. In addition, he falls for the rich man's spoiled daughter (Zhao Jingxia), and completely forgets the poor girl he left behind. When his letters stop coming, the worried girl and her father travel to search for him, but when located he is out on a shopping spree with his new girlfriend, and pretends he does not know the two. Disheartened, they leave for home. The young man marries his employer's daughter, but soon learns she only thinks of him as a casual plaything and treats him like her personal servant. When he complains, they quarrel, and he is driven from the family home. The young man returns to the humble rural home he had left, hoping to win back the one who truly loved him, but arrives to find the house falling down and covered with dust. He learns the father had unexpectedly fallen ill and died, and the forlorn and brokenhearted girl died soon after. As he walks through the deserted house, examining the little things she left behind, he is haunted by memories of her and thoughts of the simple but happy life he might have had. Unable to bear it any longer, he stumbles outside and collapses to the ground, sobbing.
*
Chungui Mengli Ren (1925) 春闺梦里人 (The Person in the Boudoir Dream)
[left, a young officer bids his family farewell; his wife (Wang Hanlun), sitting apart from the rest of the family, doesn't share the sentiment of patriotic duty]
Changcheng (Great Wall). 9 reels. Release date: September 19, 1925. Direction: Li Zeyuan, Mei Xuechou. Screenplay: Hou Yao. Cinematography: Cheng Peilin. Sets: Li Ganchu, Zhu Rongsheng. Makeup: Xing Shaomei. Cast: Wang Hanlun (Cai Wanxian), Lei Xiadian (Chen Shiying), Jiang Hailun (Chen Shifang), Huang Yangyu (Cai Renjia), Liu Jiqun (Huang Jinbiao), Zhai Qiqi (Mrs. Li), Huang Zhihuai (Mo Guoren), Shen Lixia (Old Mother Chen), Pan Yuezhen (Mother Huang), Xing Shaomei (Yu Xingzhi), Wang Songquan (Zhu Jun), Chen Fulan (Mei Xiang), Jiang Xingying (Chen Xueying), Bao Mengjiao (Huang De).
After graduating from an American military college, a young man returns to China imbued with the belief that armed force should be used to maintain peace, with war only a last resort. He enters the service of a warlord who initially shares this belief, but a year later the warlord has a personal dispute with another warlord, and decides to attack, despite the young officer's efforts to dissuade him. The younger man feels a duty to follow, although his mother, wife and daughter try their best to stop him. In the attack, the young officer is mortally wounded. Back home, the three women grieve.
*
Hao Gege (1925) 好哥哥 (The Good Brothers)
Mingxing (Star). 9 reels. Premiered January 7, 1925 at the Apollo. Direction: Zhang Shichuan. Screenplay: Zheng Zhengqiu. Cinematography: Dong Keyi. Cast: Zheng Zhegu (Liu Desheng), Zheng Xiaoqiu (Da Bao), Xiao Jiujiu (Er Bao), Yang Naimei (Madame Su), Huang Junpu (Yang Houzhai), Wang Xianzhai (Ke Ting), Wang Jiting (Ke Ming), Gu Zhensheng (Ke Wei).
[right, Da Bao (Zheng Xiaoqiu), center foreground, gets an ultimatum from a circus roustabout]
Two young brothers are orphaned by war. Dabao, the elder by two years, indentures himself to a traveling circus to support himself and little brother Erbao. One day, Dabao overhears the circus owner discussing with a confederate a plot to disfigure Erbao and put him in the sideshow as a freak. Dabao and his brother run away. At last, exhausted and hungry, they beg at a wealthy-looking home, where the mistress of the mansion takes them in. A childless widow, she grows very fond of the boys, especially little Erbao, and decides to adopt them and make them her heirs. When her three nephews visit, she happily tells them the news, and although they feign joy, they had hoped for the inheritance themselves and plot to stop her plan. The nephews hire a contract killer to kidnap and murder the boys. But when the killer has them alone, and raises his knife to kill Erbao, Dabao cries so piteously the killer is moved to spare them, then turns angrily on the trio of conspirators.
*
Mang Gu Nü (1925) 盲孤女 (A Blind Orphan Girl)
Mingxing (Star). 10 reels. Premiered October 1, 1925 at the Palace. Direction: Zhang Shichuan. Screenplay: Zheng Zhengqiu. Cinematography: Dong Keyi. Cast: Xuan Jinglin (Li Cuiying), Zheng Xiaoqiu (Li Haishan), Cen Xueqin (Li's second wife, née Chen), Zhao Chen (Wang Changgen), Zhao Weisan (Zhao Hengpu), Huang Yunzhen (Mrs. Zhu), Shu Yun (Zhao Yingjuan), Wang Xianzhai (Chu Guodong), Zhou Kongkong (Mao Jinkui), Wang Jiting (Mao Xiaokui/Zhao Zhongyu), Huang Junpu (Lu Asan), Yan Zhongying (Yang Afu).
[left, Haishan (Zheng Xiaoqiu) tries to talk his stepsister Cuiying (Xuan Jinglin) out of her hiding place)
After her father dies, Li Cuiying is constantly abused by her stepmother, who takes the girl out of school and forces her to find work in a factory. Cuiying is fired when she refuses her foreman's sexual advances but her stepmother blames the girl. Cuiying spends most of her days in misery and tears, and at last loses her sight. The only person who cares for and comforts her is her little stepbrother Haishan, but he is powerless to help.
Meanwhile, Chu Guodong (Wang Xianzhai), the son-in-law of wealthy country squire Zhao Hengpu, is appointed to a procuratorial post in Shanghai. Before Chu leaves for the city, his father-in-law tells him that 13 years before, when he was an official in Shanghai, his beloved son Zhongyu had disappeared. He asks Guodong in his new official position to trace what happened to the boy.
Actually, Zhongyu had been kidnapped by Lu Asan, a gangster who specialized in kidnapping children, then selling them. He sold the child to a fellow gangster named Mao Jinkui, who raised the boy as his own son, renamed Mao Xiaokui.
At last, her hopeless and miserable existence drives Cuiying to attempt suicide, but Mao Jinkui and the now teenaged Xiaokui save her. In time, Xiaokui and Cuiying develop feelings for each other. But when Mao Jinkui tries to take liberties with the blind girl, Xiaokui rebels and goes to the authorities. The case goes to court, presided over by Chu Guodong. Lu Asan confesses what happened years earlier, and Zhao father and son are reunited, after which the elder man finds a doctor to restore Cuiying's sight. The young couple happily look forward to a new life together.
*
Shanghai Yi Furen (1925) 上海一妇人 (A Shanghai Woman)
Mingxing. Silent. 9 reels. Premiered July 28, 1925 at the Palace. Direction: Zhang Shichuan. Screenplay: Zheng Zhengqiu. Cinematography: Dong Keyi. Cast: Xuan Jinglin (Wu Aibao/Hua Tanru), Cheng Gongyuan (Wu Yunsheng), Maxu Weibang (Zhao Guichuan), Huang Yunzhen (A Jin, née Lin), Yan Zhongying (Lin Fugen), Wang Jiting (Li Shuxiang), Shao Zhuanglin (Liu Zhitian), Wen Ji (Tang Xiaoqing), Yan Shuzhen (Huang Eryuan), Wang Xianzhai (Xu Dalong), Zhao Chen (Wang Laojiu).
[right, a courtesan makes sure her old boy friend gets the best medical care]
Aibao, a naive young village girl bedazzled by what she perceives as a glamorous and wealthy lifestyle, is lured into becoming a high-class courtesan in Shanghai. She grows famous and marries a celebrity, but is later abandoned. When her former fiancee, in the city looking for a wife, is struck by an automobile, she pays his medical bills and then helps him marry another woman and set up a home. When the same procuress who had enticed her into the life arrives with a young girl much like herself at that age, Aibao buys out the girl's freedom and sends her to school. Although she cares for and helps so many others, Aibao is incapable of helping herself and escaping the trap of the life she has chosen.
*
Zuihou zhi Liangxin (1925) 最后之良心 (The Last Conscience)
Mingxing. B&W. Silent. 10 reels. Premiered May 3, 1925 at the Carter. Direction: Zhang Shichuan. Screenplay: Zheng Zhengqiu. Cinematography: Dong Keyi. Cast: Wang Xianzhai (Qin Renbo), Huang Yunzhen (Qin's wife, née Yu), Huang Junpu (Qin's son Hesheng), Xuan Jinglin (Qin's daughter Chunhua), Yan Zhongying (Kuang Yukang), Yong Xian (Wang Antang), Xiao Yangsu (Wang's daughter Xiuzhen), Zhao Weisan (Liu Chengde), Lin Xuehuai (Liu's son Jialin), Wang Jiting (Tian Dexiu).
When Wang Antang's business failures render him incapable of repaying his debt to unscrupulous moneylender Qin Renbo, the latter forces Wang to turn over his daughter Xiuzhen to be the future bride of Qin's dimwitted son. When the son is killed falling from a horse, the little girl is married to the son's memorial tablet, and under the feudal system is condemned to lifelong widowhood.
Qin Chunhua, the moneylender's daughter, desires another debtor's son Liu Jialin as her husband, and she gets her way. But after the wedding she constantly goes out of her way to treat him badly.
Wang Antang falls ill and, fearing he is dying, goes to the Qin mansion to see his daughter, but is not permitted to see her, and driven away. Liu Jialin takes pity on Wang and gives him a gift of money for medical treatment, but the older man foolishly loses it all gambling. When Chunhua learns what her husband had done, she curses and scolds him, so much so that Jialin angrily walks out.
Chunhua has a lover, and one day the couple elope, taking a large amount of her father's money with them. This leads to a violent argument between Qin Renbo and his wife, during which he strikes her, injuring her fatally. Qin himself has a hysterical reaction and faints. When he regains consciousness, he is conscience-stricken about his past actions and takes his own life. But before dying, Qin makes out his will, leaving his entire estate and property to Jialin and Xiuzhen. The young couple happily look forward to a new life together.
