Zhou Xiaowen is a Chinese filmmaker. He graduated from the Cinematography Department of the Beijing Film Academy in 1975 and is part of the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers.
Cai Chusheng was a Chinese film director of the pre-Communist era, and was the first Chinese director to win an international film award at the Moscow International Film Festival. Best known for his progressive output in the 1930s, Cai Chusheng was later severely persecuted and died during the Cultural Revolution. His ashes are kept at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing.
Mingxing Film Company, also known as the Star Motion Picture Company, was one of the largest production companies during the 1920s, and 1930s in the Republican era. Founded in Shanghai, the company lasted from 1922 until 1937 when it was closed permanently by the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Gu Changwei is a Chinese cinematographer and film director. Gu was born in Xi'an, Shaanxi in the People's Republic of China. Gu is considered one of the major Chinese cinematographers working today.
Runje Shaw (1896–1975), also known as Shao Zuiweng and Shao Renjie, was a Chinese film entrepreneur, producer and director. The eldest of the Shaw brothers, in 1925 he founded Tianyi Film Company in Shanghai, which became one of the top three film production companies in pre-WWII Republic of China, and the beginning of the Shaw Brothers media empire.
Wu Yigong was a Chinese film director and producer.
Zhang Jianya is a Chinese film director. As a graduate of the 1982 class of the Beijing Film Academy, Zhang is a founding member of the so-called Fifth Generation, a group that also includes in its numbers directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Tian Zhuangzhuang.
He Qun was a Chinese filmmaker. A graduate of the 1982 class of the Beijing Film Academy, he was an inaugural member of China's "Fifth Generation" movement.
Zheng Zhengqiu was a Chinese filmmaker often considered a "founding father" of Chinese cinema.
Cheng Bugao was a prominent Chinese film director during the 1930s. Employed by the Mingxing Film Company, Cheng was responsible for several important "leftist" films in the period, including the Wild Torrents (1933) and Spring Silkworms (1933). Both films were based on screenplays by Xia Yan.
Shi Dongshan, born Shi Kuangshao, was one of the most prominent film directors and screenwriters in pre-Communist China, together with Chen Liting, Cai Chusheng, and Zheng Junli. His most notable film was Eight Thousand Li of Cloud and Moon, released in 1947. He served in the Communist government after 1949, but was later persecuted and committed suicide in 1955.
Breaking with Old Ideas is a 1975 Chinese film directed by Li Wenhua. The film is one of the few that were produced during the Cultural Revolution. As a result of the political upheaval taking place, Breaking with Old Ideas's plot was heavily regulated under highly codified guidelines on story and characterization so that it would have a mass character, as opposed to an individual focused character, namely proletarian politics as opposed to bourgeois politics. The film draws inspiration from issues with schooling in China at the time, such as that there was too much study, and too little social practice.
Lai Pak-hoi or Li Beihai (1889–1950) was a Chinese actor and producer based in Hong Kong, and an early pioneer of the Hong Kong film industry.
Shangguan Yunzhu was a Chinese actress active from the 1940s to the 1960s. She was considered one of the most talented and versatile actresses in China, and was named one of the 100 best actors of the 100 years of Chinese cinema in 2005.
Tianyi Film Company, also called Unique Film Productions, was one of the "big three" film production companies in pre-Second World War Republic of China. Founded in Shanghai in 1925 by the Shaw (Shao) brothers led by Runje Shaw, the company also established operations in Malaya and Hong Kong. Although the company's Shanghai studio was destroyed in 1937 during the Japanese invasion, its offshoot in Hong Kong, later called Shaw Brothers Studio, blossomed into a media empire under the leadership of the youngest brother, Sir Run Run Shaw.
Wan Jen is a Taiwanese filmmaker. He is a member of Taiwan's New Wave cinema movement of the 1980s.
Yan Ruisheng is a 1921 Chinese silent film directed by Ren Pengnian and starring Chen Shouzi and Wang Caiyun. A docudrama based on the murder of Wang Lianying the previous year, it follows a young man named Yan Ruisheng who, deeply in debt, kills a courtesan to steal her jewellery. The crime is discovered, and he and his accomplices attempt to flee. Yan is captured in Xuzhou and returned to Shanghai, where he is executed.
Zhou Jianyun was a Chinese dramatist and film entrepreneur. Born in Hefei, Anhui, he travelled to Shanghai in his youth for school before entering the city's drama community through the Qimin New Drama Society and press through the Emancipation Pictorial. With his fellow dramatists Zhang Shichuan and Zheng Zhengqiu, in 1922 he established the Mingxing Film Company, variously serving as its manager, finance director, and film distributor. He spearheaded the establishment of the Liuhe Film Distribution Company in 1928, and in the early 1930s he hired several Communist screenwriters. Mingxing was closed in 1939 during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and although Zhou established several further companies, these were short-lived.
Orphan Rescues Grandfather is a 1923 Chinese silent film directed by Zhang Shichuan for the Mingxing Film Company. Starring Wang Hanlun, Zheng Zhegu, and Zheng Xiaoqiu, this melodrama follows the pregnant widow of a wealthy man who, after her reputation is tarnished, is evicted from her husband's family. Ten years later, her son becomes an apt pupil who saves his grandfather from a plot to steal his wealth.
