As 2005 draws to a close, so does a year of activities marking the 100th anniversary of China's film industry. 

 

The China Film Museum will open to the public tomorrow in Beijing, offering visitors a panorama of the entire history of Chinese film-making.

 

The fact that a traditional Peking Opera aria was part of the first Chinese movie in 1905 epitomized the nature of this new art form in the eyes of Chinese people.

 

Besides its entertainment and commercial functions, Peking Opera, as well as other types of operas in other dialects, has a special role. It disseminates traditional values by providing the public with common knowledge of Chinese history and a code of conduct for specific occasions.

 

With feature films making up the majority of motion pictures in the 1920s and 1930s, the combination of entertainment and meaningful content became standard for filmmakers.

 

But how best to mix these elements remained a concern, and no doubt will continue to be for another century.

 

Chinese film-making has undergone the same fluctuations as the nation. To find a new path for this type of art, some pioneers in the 1920s and 1930s made painstaking efforts to produce good films. Directors, stars and script writers imprinted their names on the minds of filmgoers when they produced fascinating stories.

 

Such movies as Spring River Flows East, which was nicknamed the Chinese Gone with the Wind, were still moving audiences to tears when they were shown again in cinemas in the early 1980s.

 

The founding of New China in 1949 was a milestone in the development of the Chinese film industry, which started to be supported financially by the State. Filmmakers did not have to worry about box office income, and neither did they have to concern themselves with funding as long as the number of films was planned for specific film studios.

 

Although political ideology played an important role in the content of films, filmmakers did produce very good works that properly combined the elements of entertainment and meaningful content.

 

The 10 years of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) was a dark time for motion picture makers, most of whom were labelled "bad elements" and were sent to do physical work in the countryside. Not a single film was produced until the last two years of that period, when a couple of movies with strong political struggle messages were made.

 

Economic reform and opening up injected life into the dying industry in the early 1980s.

 

Still under the planned system, filmmakers did a good job, having made many films that were quite popular.

 

The fifth generation of filmmakers, such as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, has brought home international awards for Chinese movies, indicating that the industry has started to go global.

 

But restructuring the film industry has brought both opportunities and challenges for Chinese filmmakers.

 

Without the planned quota system and audiences organized by institutions, box office income has become a primary concern for producers.

 

Under this pressure and the challenge of imported blockbusters from Hollywood, attracting filmgoers with movies that are entertaining and meaningful has again become a concern.

 

Frankly speaking, today's filmmakers have much better conditions in which to work than their predecessors. They have much more freedom to choose both their topic and channel for funding.

 

What they need is creativity, imagination and a notion that something meaningful is the soul of a film. 

 

(China Daily December 28, 2005)