We’ve no means of figuring out for sure whether or not or not Ren Qingtai had an inkling of the legacy he’d go away behind when he first ordered a French-made, wooden-bodied, hand-cranked digicam to roll, again within the fall of 1905.
However chances are high he did. Historical past reveals Ren was a really sensible man, and a multi-hyphenate, a very good century earlier than that phrase even emerged. Importantly, he was additionally the person who directed China’s first-ever movie, Dingjun Mountain.
“The manufacturing of this movie stands as a symbolic milestone, marking the tip of an period with out Chinese language cinema and devoid of domestically produced movies by the Chinese language folks,” explains Professor Li Zhen from the China Movie Archive.
Now, simply take a look at what Ren began. Quick-forward 120 years, and China boasts the second-largest movie trade on the earth, with such current mega-hits as Ne Zha 2, which the Beijing fest can be celebrating.
The 15th version of the Beijing Worldwide Movie Competition is marking these 120 years of Chinese language cinema with a particular program beneath its “Beijing Panorama” part, one which makes an attempt to hint the evolution of movie-making within the nation.
Program curator Sha Dan has forged the web extensive, and the choice affords a group of treasures, from uncommon screenings of restored silent movies (1927’s Spiders and The Goddess from 1934 included) full with dwell scores, and on to the early days of animation and China’s, and Asia’s, first animated function, Princess Iron Fan (1941).
“Created throughout wartime China, it reimagines mythological tales with undertones of nationwide salvation,” says Sha.
Charting a course by way of historical past, audiences can all catch Fei Mu’s aching traditional Spring in a Small City – in 2025 voted one of the best Chinese language movie of all time – and work their means by way of the likes of kung fu blockbuster Shaolin Temple (1982) and on to “up to date visions” comparable to Jia Zhangke’s era-spanning anthology Mountains Could Depart (2015).
“General, this particular program honors the pioneers and trailblazing artists of Chinese language cinema. It additionally affords a fantastic alternative to know how Chinese language movie has developed over the previous 120 years,” says Sha.
‘Dingjun Mountain,’ courtesy of China Movie Archive
The event of the 120th anniversary can be being marked by discussions on movie historical past hosted by filmmakers Jia Zhangke and Huo Jianqi, and it additionally affords movie geeks an opportunity to mirror on the folks – and the circumstances – that first introduced cinema to China.
And that leads us again to the story of Ren Qingtai.
Movie had first landed in China in 1896 with screenings in Shanghai of shorts from France’s Lumière brothers. As Li tells it, Ren was born into poverty within the 1850 of Faku, Liaoning, at first turning to carpentry within the hope of discovering his fortune. His work turned heads and he started to search for new alternatives simply as images reached China.
By 1892, Ren had opened the Fengtai Picture Studio in Beijing, and he was quickly counting amongst his shoppers none aside from the Qing Dynasty’s Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-19080 – famously portrayed on her deathbed in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winner The Final Emperor (1987). For that work, he was awarded a “fourth-rank official’s hat and peacock feather”, which introduced “nice fame”, says Li.
Movement photos had been on the time rapidly turning heads, and Ren seized the chance, shopping for that wood digicam of his from Beijing’s Kierulf’s Retailer, and enlisting the companies of Peking Opera veteran actor Tan Xinpei and budding cinematographer Liu Zhonglun within the courtyard of his studio in an effort to create China’s first movie.
“Filming happened over three days, capturing three excerpts from the Peking Opera Dingjun Mountain – Requesting Orders [Qing Ying], Sword Dance [Wu Dao], and Battle Engagement [Jiao Feng],” explains Li. It’s mentioned that after completion, Ren Qingtai screened the movie at his Daguanlou Theater and different theaters. “He based the primary skilled cinema in Beijing, the Daguanlou Cinema, remodeling the film-viewing expertise and serving to to shift cinema from a court docket novelty to a type of mass leisure.”