[left, Tianyi studio entrance]
Chinese studios completed 98 films in 1926, only a few of them shorts, reflecting the changing tastes of film audiences. Mingxing again led the way in individual full-length releases with 11, but in another new trend, the Shao (later Shaw) Brothers Tianyi studio produced a few multi-part films which brought their actual total to 13 feature length releases in just their second year of operation. The Da Zhongguo (Great China) studio, also in just its second year, came in a close second with 12, which also included several multi-part productions. Six other studios had 3 or more productions in 1926, while the remainder were scattered among 26 other studios in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing.
Another batch of new faces appeared on screen for the first time in 1926, including future matinee idol Gong Jianong, beginning a career that would last through the 1960s, as well as future male leads Sun Min, Yuan Congmei and Wang Cilong. Future female stars debuting in 1926 were Chen Yumei, Li Dandan, Li Manli, Liang Menghua, Liang Saizhen and the woman now regarded as China's greatest actress of the silent era – Ruan Lingyu.
Two notable directing careers began in 1926, writer/director Bu Wancang (who had earlier credits as a cinematographer) and writer/director Shen Fu.
Most of the newcomers will be dealt with individually in future posts, either in full profiles or brief biographies.
Chinese movie-related events of 1926
1 January: "Fiction World" magazine publishes Chen Dabei's (陈大悲) translation of the Broadway hit "Abie's Irish Rose". This was the first Chinese translation of a foreign script. (Full translation, not adaptation.)
February: The Li Brothers' Minxin studio moves to Shanghai from Hong Kong.
[after their move to Shanghai, some Minxin staff pose at the main gate. Li Minwei is identifiable on the left, the others are not]
30 March: With American movies dominating the domestic market, six Shanghai studios (Mingxing, Da Zhonghua, Shanghai, Shenzhou, Youlian and Huaju) form a joint operation to distribute their films nationally and share theaters in other Chinese cities. From then until the operation disbands at the end of June, 1929, the cooperative venture distributes over 100 Chinese films throughout the country.
16 December: some short sound film clips are shown at a theater in Shanghai, then re-exhibited at two other theaters during the next week. These test showings stir up considerable excitement among fillmmakers and audiences who see them.
During the year:
The board of directors of the Commercial Press decided to spin off its Motion Picture Division into a separate film company, Guoguang [national light], which would be "responsible for its own profits and losses, but remain under [CP] management". The board took this action in the belief that by freeing the new company of the CP name and its association with cultural and educational films, this would allow it to make commercial movies. Yang Xiaozhong was named head of the new studio, with full responsibility for all filmmaking activities. However, mainstay writer/director Ren Pengnian and cinematographer Liao Enshou (廖恩寿) both left, and when in 1927, Yang also departed Guoguang, the studio soon terminated operations.
Also during the year, the three Wan ( 万) brothers created China's first animated short, "Zhiren Daoluan Ji" 纸人捣乱记 (The Paper Man Makes Trouble).
Foreign movie-related events of 1926
18 January: Sergei Eisenstein's Potemkin is setting box office records in Moscow.
1 March: Reviewing The Pleasure Garden, his first film, the British press hails 25-year-old Alfred Hitchcock as a "young man with the vision of a master".
8 March: The Black Pirate, Douglas Fairbanks' latest swashbuckler, is wowing audiences with its spectacular special effects and battle scenes, as well as being the first full-length two-tone Technicolor feature to receive wide distribution nationally.
16 August: Young New York star Clara Bow signs her first Hollywood contract, a 5-year deal with Paramount.
23 August: Matinee idol Rudolph Valentino, adored by millions of women worldwide, dies at the age of 31. His funeral in New York a week later touches off an orgy of grieving around the world.
24 September: Female impersonator-turned-director Teinosuke Kinugasa's Expressionist film A Page of Madness, set in an insane asylum, opens in Tokyo. [Editor's note: this silent masterpiece, as brilliantly filmed as it is disturbing, was believed lost until the early 1970s when a copy was found and restored.]
30 October: In Berlin, Fritz Lang has wrapped filming on Metropolis, his futuristic allegory, produced at a reported cost of 5 million marks.
