Reading response: Lee, Leo Ou-fan

In this article, it captures the film industry in the 1930s Shanghai, where is the earliest Chinese film production and movie theaters were first developed. At that time, watching films is considered as a new lifestyle of leisure. With the popularity of movie magazines, it enhances the publicity of movies. The guidebook is published, which gives tips such as buying snacks to avoid high price in cinema. In the second half of article, the author mainly compares the Hollywood movies with Chinese movies. For the movies in China, it does not emphasis the sexuality. This shows that in Chinese tradition,

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Reading response: Lee

Lee contrasts the 20th-century Chinese movie industry with western cinemas. According to Lee, Chinese movies tend to keep a distance between the story and the audience through long takes and deep focuses, allowing them to admire the film as a fabricated story, whereas the Hollywood-styled movies use many editing techniques to keep audiences engaged. Lee also criticized other aspects of Chinese cinema, such as the tendency to focus on romance and life stories. In my opinion, Lee’s views were very subjective and might be a bit outdated. Traditional drama was the primary entertainment method before the intervention of cameras, and

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Reading Response: Lee, Leo Ou-fan

The reading discussed the influence of Hollywood on early Chinese cinema, such as in acting style, camera movements, and even lighting design. I do think that it would be inevitable that Hollywood would have a huge influence due to the fact that film was invented in the United States and that the majority of the film imported during the period of early Chinese cinema was from the US. Filmmakers from the US had more time and capital to experiment with a myriad of filmmaking techniques in order to express themselves. Therefore the techniques used in Hollywood films would be more

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Reading Response: Leo Ou-fan Lee

Lee’s essay is extremely indulging as rather than exploring the cinematic universe from an Americanized perspective, it looks at films in the context of late 1930s and early 1940s Shanghai. He encourages readers to look through the eyes of a citizen belonging to that time period to fully comprehend the socio-political influences. During the early 1930s in Shanghai, there was a high demand for visual entertainment due to industrialization, which was evident through the increasing popularity of film reviews in magazines. Movies of the time had highly distinguishable characteristics: a preference for melodramas, representation of female characters as feminine and

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Reading Response: Leo and Zhang

Early chinese film: Struggle to surive. Film and cinema are two concepts of modernization, which was introduced into China in early 20th centenry. During which time China has suffered from long period of colonization and economical depression. Meanwhile, film industry had already experience several waves of rapid development in western world lead by hollywood. These two passages provide a lot of insight regarding how Chinese film industry struggle to survive and develop its own style under such pressure. First of all, as pointed by Zheng’s paper, films in china has serves as different entertaiment purpose when it is firstly introduced.

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Reading Response: Zhen Zhang

‘Labourer’s Love’, the very first film born into the empty Chinese cinema-space, was a eulogy of the daily mundanities of the average middle-class worker. This is interesting, since it reflected what kind of story Chinese people wish to be told. A story of the commonplace, average labourer. This is contrasted with Hollywood films, which usually portrays an extraordinary protagonist, with an exceptional narrative that stimulates the audience into attention. Through this comparison the characteristics of early Chinese cinema becomes more apparent. That, though the film still runs the rather typical story arch, attempts to be more experimental in its portrayal.

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Reading Response: Leo Ou-fan Lee

After reading Leo Ou-fan Lee’s The Urban Milieu of Shanghai Cinema, 1930-40: Some Explorations of Film Audience, Film Culture, and Narrative Conventions, in general, I found that it is difficult to understand the content and we need to be very concentrated when we are reading to follow the film examples mentioned in ghe text as they are very old that we do not know what they are talking about. Therefore, it is hard to understand Leo’s arguement. In content, Shanghai is a complex and unique place in China in 1930s as there is the settlement of many countries such as

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Reading Response: Leo Ou-Fan and Zhang Zhen

In general, the introduction of foreign films and the development of local films in the 1930s renewed the modern urban culture in China. Although Chinese filmmaking was far behind Hollywood films in 1930s due to equipment limitations, it did not fully embrace foreign influences in the content. The depiction of modern women, for example, still retains tradition in its bold display of glamour. Another example is that ‘Labor’s Love’ was shown in a teahouse, a place that represented mass culture. Although the film still followed the old story formula, it expressed Zheng’s desire to criticize and reform the feudal view

Continue readingReading Response: Leo Ou-Fan and Zhang Zhen