By the end of the 1920s, sound film productions from US and European companies were rising rapidly, but for technical reasons the only talkies available to Chinese film fans were those from America. However, some Chinese studios were able to utilize sound to a certain degree by accompanying their silent films with music. This experiment may initially have been just a temporary expedient to please audiences, but it actually resulted in making movie songs widely popular, a trend which continued into the sound era.
The first recorded movie song was a wax disk dubbed onto a 1930 silent, performed as a duet by its costars. Ironically, the female half of the duo was an actress who never made a sound film -- China's greatest silent diva, Ruan Lingyu. This was the first time Chinese audiences had heard the voices of Ruan and her co-star Jin Yan. In the ensuing decade, the output of China's top composers became a standard part of popular music, and as in the West, provided a springboard for sheet music and recording sales as well as opening up recording careers for the actors and actresses performing them.
The golden age of film songs begins
"Wild Flower Among the Weeds" may not have been one of Sun Yu's most important productions, even though it included such soon-to-be ingredients for success as the "Emperor" Jin Yan, and his popular leading lady Ruan Lingyu. Fundamentally a remake of Dumas fil's "La Dame Aux Camélias" and the American film "Camille" the plot offered nothing new. But the film is still memorable and noted by film historians if only for its having initiated a new cinematic era: beginning with "Wild Flower," Chinese movies had their own music and songs.
In discussing movie music, Isaak Dunayevsky (1900-1955), a prolific composer for Soviet movies in the 1930s and 40s, said that "Motion pictures, this great and popular art form, not only move forward with their songs, they also produce and popularize them." Attracting the public's attention was not only the mission of movie music, but also its function, so movie songs became the best tool for popularizing those movies, and in turn the movies spread the songs' popularity. The "Wild Flowers" selection "Seeking Brother's Words," was nothing outstanding in itself, a mourning for lost home and family, but its performance, particularly by Jin Yan (said to have a crystal clear voice in his youth), marked a milestone in Chinese film history as well as in his own career ladder. (To give some flavor of what was popular in that past time and place, my own translation of Sun Yu's lyrics is at the end of this post with no guarantee of accuracy: I don't usually do poetry.)
"Wild Flower" came along more than a year prior to the actual start of China's sound movie era, but quickly became an unstoppable tide for China's entertainment media, igniting a wave of movie songs that strongly influenced that era's movie industry. Two 1934 releases, "Twin Sisters"《姊妹花》starring Hu Die, and "Song of the Fishermen,"《渔光曲》starring Wang Renmei, featured songs which quickly caught the public imagination, and in turn gave an impetus to the market for these films. Both films played to packed theaters, and many who saw the movies went right out and bought up the music.
The success of these two, particularly "Song of the Fishermen," prompted filmmakers to focus on including a theme song in each major film, whether silent or sound, and the next few years brought such major movie songs as "Song of the Big Road" 《大路歌》 from "Da Lu" 《大路》[The Big Road], "Graduation Song"《毕业歌》from "Tao Li Jie"《桃李劫》[Plunder of Peach and Plumb aka Tragic Fate of College Graduates], and "Song at Midnight"《夜半歌声》from the movie of the same name. But these are just a few of the most successful; there were many more popular songs paving the road to their film's commercial success.
The general public in China today will usually recognize an old pop song when they hear it as being what in the West is called a "standard," although they may not know it was originally featured in a classic movie, let alone have an idea what that movie may have been. This is true of audiences in the West as well: many people will recognize such standards as, say, "Thanks for the Memory" or "Night and Day," but how many could identify the movies that introduced them, without looking it up? All they know is the song is a standard and has a nostalgic aura to it.
Although Chinese film music today is of a fairly high standard, there is a consensus among Chinese film historians that the 1930s were the Golden Age of Chinese film music, and no era since can compare to it. I find this much like the situation with film music in the West: for although an Oscar for Best Song is still awarded every year, when was the last one anyone would recognize?
"A Searching Brother's Words"
I left home to join the army
Returned to emptiness and desolation, my parents dead
Our home in ruins, the family tomb overgrown with weeds
My little sister wanders, homeless and destitute!
Ten years ago, home was like a jade palace
Now my little brother and sister are both homeless
I must find my brother, find my sister
And bring them home!
The windswept skies are gray, the snowflakes swirl around me
The nights are cold, but I still find voice to sing
My brother, can you hear my voice?
I scan the horizon, seeking the homeless!
Snowflakes fly, scattering the fallen blossoms
Over thousands of mountains, across ten thousand waters
I seek my brother and sister, and if it takes ten more years
We will be reunited, and give thanks to heaven!
