Zhang Shichuan
Who was Zhang Shichuan?
Founding father of Chinese cinema (1890-1954)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Zhang Shichuan (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Zhang Shichuan (1890–1954), also known as S. C. Chang, was a Chinese entrepreneur, film director, film producer, and screenwriter from Ningbo, China. He is often seen as a key figure in the beginnings of Chinese cinema, playing a big role in making films a form of art and a business in China during the early 1900s. Alongside director and screenwriter Zheng Zhengqiu, Zhang helped form the basic style of Chinese film over a career of more than 40 years, directing about 150 works.
One of Zhang's early key achievements was in 1913 when he and Zheng Zhengqiu produced The Difficult Couple, the first Chinese feature film. In 1922, Zhang directed Laborer's Love, a short comedy and the oldest complete Chinese film still around today. That same year, he and Zheng started the Mingxing Film Company, also called the Star Film Company, in Shanghai. Under Zhang's leadership, Mingxing became the biggest film production company in China, making many successful and socially aware films throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
Zhang continued to set new trends in the following years. In 1923, he directed Orphan Rescues Grandfather, one of the first Chinese films to do very well at the box office, showing that local movies could attract large audiences. In 1928, he produced The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, a serial martial arts film considered the first of its kind in Chinese cinema, starting a craze for wuxia films that would affect the industry for years. In 1931, he directed Sing-Song Girl Red Peony, China's first sound film, marking another big step in the growth of Chinese cinema.
Zhang's career took a sharp downturn because of the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1937, during the Battle of Shanghai, Japanese bombing destroyed the Mingxing studio, effectively stopping the company. Later, Zhang made films for the China United Film Production Company, called Zhonglian, under Japanese occupation in Shanghai. This led to serious accusations of collaboration and treason after Japan surrendered in 1945. His reputation never recovered, and Zhang spent his final years with a tarnished name. He died in Shanghai in 1953 or 1954, with sources differing on the exact date.
Before Fame
Zhang Shichuan was born in 1890 in Ningbo, a coastal city in Zhejiang Province that was already closely tied to Shanghai's commercial and cultural life through trade and migration by the late nineteenth century. Not much is known about his early education or family background, but his eventual move into the film business shows the modernization trends that were transforming urban China in the early Republican era. Shanghai had become a hub for foreign influence, new media, and business ventures, and cinema appeared there as both an exciting novelty and a business opportunity after the Lumière brothers' first screenings in the 1890s.
By the early 1910s, Zhang had connected with American film interests in Shanghai and started working in film production when Chinese-produced films were nearly non-existent. His collaboration with Zheng Zhengqiu combined Zhang's organizational and directing skills with Zheng's literary and dramatic talents, creating a partnership that became crucial to the entire industry. The two men understood that cinema could connect with Chinese audiences if it incorporated local theatrical traditions and contemporary social issues, and they committed to that vision from the start of their careers.
Key Achievements
- Co-directed The Difficult Couple (1913), the first Chinese feature film, with Zheng Zhengqiu
- Directed Laborer's Love (1922), the earliest complete surviving Chinese film
- Cofounded the Mingxing (Star) Film Company in 1922, which became China's largest film studio
- Produced The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple (1928), the first Chinese martial arts (wuxia) film
- Directed Sing-Song Girl Red Peony (1931), China's first sound film
Did You Know?
- 01.Laborer's Love (1922), which Zhang directed, is the earliest surviving complete Chinese film, making it an irreplaceable artifact of early Asian cinema history.
- 02.The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple (1928) was so popular that it spawned 18 sequel installments, making it one of the earliest film franchises in Chinese cinema history.
- 03.Sing-Song Girl Red Peony (1931) was not only China's first sound film but used a disc-based sound synchronization system rather than optical sound, reflecting the varied technologies circulating globally at the dawn of the sound era.
- 04.Zhang directed approximately 150 films over his career, an output that placed him among the most prolific directors of early world cinema during the silent and early sound periods.
- 05.The Mingxing Film Company that Zhang cofounded in 1922 eventually became the largest film production company in China, operating for over a decade before its studio was destroyed by Japanese bombing in 1937.