According to Zhen Zhang, the 1922 short film “Laborer’s Love” indicated the transformation of early Chinese cinema from attraction cinema to complex narrative cinema, during which the mode of film production and the venue of projection changed dramatically, while the audience for cinema began to increase. It is the tea house that all these transformations revolve around and extend cinema to national entertainment.
Most importantly, perhaps teahouses and restaurants, and especially teahouses themselves, occupy the emotional structure of the Chinese people; in my opinion, they were first, and foremost places of consumption and social entertainment, and the fact that films were shown there implies that businessmen had a keen sense of the commercial nature of cinema. This means that, as an imported product, early cinema was unconsciously noticed and exploited for its commerciality even before its artistry was discovered, when it was completely patented by Westerners. And the reason why movies are commercial is that people who watch them get the novelty and pleasure and are willing to pay for it.
It seems that not only early films cannot get rid of the connection with theatre, from traditional art forms to the theatre and teahouse, but also the Chinese New Cinema in the end of the 20th century. During that decade, the new cinema surprised the world with a number of award-winning films, with the rise of a few successful directors and actors, such as Zhang Yimou. However still, many references to traditional Chinese performing arts and rituals in these films constitute the most spectacular moments, and many of them are literature adaptions. The problem of lack of innovation and originality has emerged since then, but I think it may not be to blame at that time. Those traditions aroused emotional resonance among audiences in domestic as well as in Southeast Asia and bought the spotlight of the world onto Chinese cinema.
Unfortunately, what the author did not know is that Chinese cinema stagnated on this problem even after two decades. Nowadays, people focus on exploiting the commercial value of films much further than in the unconscious teahouse era, neglecting the emotional nature and storylines. There is little innovation in cliche storytelling, and the use of traditional Chinese elements is even lost. I believe Zhang Zhen would be very sorry if he saw the downhill of Chinese New Cinema which had been amazing.
Tan Qianxu 3036097750