Mingxing Film Company

This influx of capital, however, was insufficient to ensure Mingxing's long-term sustainability. Zhang Shichuan turned to a family drama, one that emphasized the importance of education, and began production of Orphan Rescues Grandfather (1923). In addition to Zheng Zhegu and Zheng Zhengqiu's son Xiaoqiu, the film featured Wang Hanlun in her debut role. Production took eight months, and when funding ran short, Zhou Jianyun pawned his wife's jewellery to complete the production. Making its debut on 21 December 1923, Orphan Rescues Grandfather was an enormous success, running for a hundred days in Shanghai; its distribution rights for southeast Asia were purchased for 8,000 yuan.

Initial expansion

After Orphan Rescues Grandfather, Mingxing began expanding. Its headquarters moved to the Shanghai French Concession. New crew were hired, including a professional cinematographer and make-up artist, while a surge in interest resulted in the film school accepting numerous students free of charge. Meanwhile, Mingxing acquired new equipment, including foreign-made cameras and printers as well as mercury-vapor and carbon-arc lamps. Seeking to accelerate production, it submitted calls for new actresses, promising wages of between 50 and 300 yuan, and hired new directors such as Hong Shen.

Over time, Mingxing also acquired several new properties. It purchased a four-mu (2,668-square-metre, 28,720 sq ft) plot of land on Hart Road in the Shanghai International Settlement. On this plot, it constructed a glass-walled studio – operational as of early 1925 – that allowed for filming regardless of light and weather conditions. To facilitate distribution, Mingxing also purchased the former Shenjiang Stage, a site of Peking opera and civilized drama performances, transforming it into a cinema and opening it to the public on 24 April 1925. This cinema, named the Palace Theatre, was used for first-run showings through 1933; in the late 1920s, another six further cinemas were acquired. Effective May 1925, after the studio made its initial public offering, Mingxing became a private limited company. To attract investors, Ren Jinping drew from his contacts through the Ningbo birthplace association, obtaining funding from prominent merchants such as Fang Jiaobo, Lao Jingxiu, and Yuan Ludeng.

As these expansion efforts were ongoing, Mingxing continued its film production, completing ten films between 1924 and 1925. Several, including Jade Pear Spirit and The Poor Children (both 1924), starred Wang Hanlun, who had risen to stardom with Orphan Rescues Grandfather; she left the company soon after, following a salary dispute. With her departure, Mingxing relied on several actresses, including Xuan Jinglin, Yang Naimei, and Zhang Zhiyun, to draw audiences; mostly, these artists were popular only briefly. Generally, Mingxing's films during this period were melodramas.

Trials and tribulations

In 1926 backlash against crime films such as Yan Ruisheng and Zhang Xinsheng resulted in the passage of censorship policies by the Ministry of Education; these guidelines, coupled with local censorship bureaus, required more measured approaches to filmmaking. Around this time, Mingxing also lost two of its founders; Zheng Zhegu died in 1925, during the filming of The Last Conscience, while Ren Jinping – disappointed with Mingxing's distribution of his debut film A New Family (1925) – left the company in 1926 to establish the Xinren Film Company.

At the same time, Mingxing also began to experience greater competition. Numerous new film companies were established in Shanghai between 1925 and 1926, and although most closed without making any films, several proved viable; for instance, the Tianyi Film Company, founded in 1925 by the brothers Run Run, Runje, Runde, and Runme Shaw, released several successful costume dramas and wuxia (martial arts) films. Although these new companies offered staunch competition, there were also opportunities for partnership; in conjunction with several other studios, in June 1926 Mingxing established the Liuhe Distribution Company to bring Shanghai films to other parts of the Republic of China. The partnership collapsed three years later, after which Mingxing established its own distribution company.

Mingxing initially sought to continue its reliance on family dramas, contracting the celebrated Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies writer Bao Tianxiao at a rate of 100 yuan per month, with an expectation that he would produce one screenplay every month. In August 1925, he granted the company rights to his novels Lonely Orchid and Fallen Plum Blossoms; the film adaptation of the former, released on 13 February 1926, was one of the most successful Chinese films of the silent era. By the end of 1926, Mingxing had four production units – respectively headed by Zhang Shichuan, Zheng Zhengqiu, Hong Shen, and Bu Wancang – and although efforts to interest further investors failed the company was generally profitable. It operated two studios, and in 1927 occupied new premises on Route Doumer.

Despite such successes, Mingxing also recognized the potential marketability of wuxia films. In 1927, after reading a copy of Xiang Kairan's novel Chronicle of the Strange Roving Knights he found in his son's room, Zhang Shichuan decided to adapt the novel to film. A martial arts drama about four travellers who uncover a conspiracy of evil monks, The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple featured Hu Die – a Tianyi artist recently signed by Mingxing – in her breakthrough role. This film was a major success upon release, and through 1931 Mingxing released another seventeen feature-length continuations. Through the remainder of the decade the company's output continued to increase, from 11 films in 1926 to 16 in 1929. It also enjoyed a roster of 26 stars, half of whom were women.

Politics and sound

Outside of Shanghai, the political situation in the Republic of China was changing. After more than a decade of warlordism, the Kuomintang (KMT) government and its National Revolutionary Army overthrew the warlords through the Northern Expedition of 1927/1928. These developments were welcomed by Mingxing, and Zhang Shichuan produced newsreels highlighting the festivities and speeches by KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek. Over time, the KMT government in Nanjing developed a series of policies for regulating the film industry; these including mandating the use of Mandarin, banning depictions of supernatural or pornographic material, and curtailing the spread of wuxia materials. At the same time, lacking a national film company, the nationalist government relied on companies such as Mingxing to disseminate information about its efforts; through the late 1920s, the company produced several recordings of government speeches, as well as short documentaries on infrastructure projects. Several KMT members, including Pan Gongzhan and Lin Kanghou, sat on its board of directors.

As these conditions were changing, so too was the landscape of the Chinese film industry. Sound films, imported from the United States, had found popularity with audiences even as many cinemas lacked the technology to properly screen them. Hoping to capitalize on this new technology, Mingxing began production of Sing-Song Girl Red Peony in mid-1931. The technological challenges required larger crews, including language coaches to help actors with their spoken Mandarin, as well as the rental of Pathé's recording studios in Shanghai. The budget soon ballooned to 120,000 yuan, six times the cost of an ordinary production, and director Zhang Shichuan took to using opium to alleviate the stress.

Sing Song Girl Red Peony was successful, but its sound-on-disc technology was soon eclipsed by the sound-on-film used by Tianyi and another competitor, Huaguang. New technology was purchased at substantial cost – some 200,000 yuan – but proved inadequate. As Mingxing continued to produce silent films, it also prepared to adapt Zhang Henshui's novel Fate in Tears and Laughter. After announcing its intent, Mingxing prepared a budget of 1.2 million yuan and conducted location shooting in Beijing over the course of two months. The film's 1932 premiere was cut short, however, when Mingxing was accused of copyright violation; a rival, the Dahua Film Company, had pre-emptively registered the copyright for a film adaptation of the novel. Negotiations, which included court arguments as well as protection from the gangsters Huang Jinrong and Du Yuesheng, resulted in Mingxing being allowed to screen its adaptation.

Financial floundering and communist cinema

Gaining permission to screen Fate in Tears and Laughter cost Mingxing another 100,000 yuan, used for protection money and to reimburse the potential losses incurred by Dahua. The film, however, had mediocre critical and commercial returns. Meanwhile, the Japanese incursion into Shanghai had destroyed numerous cinemas and parts of Mingxing's studios, the occupation of Manchuria had reduced available markets, and the ongoing war had created a recession. New film studios, such as the United Photoplay Service (UPS), likewise continued to be established. By the end of 1932, Mingxing was unable to pay staff salaries and had posted massive debts. Creditors were calling, with the American Commercial and Exchange Bank suing the company in late 1933 for failure to repay its loans.

To ameliorate its financial situation, Mingxing boosted production and called for new talent. Taking advantage of a KMT government commission to produce a travel documentary that highlighted the areas along the country's three major railways, which allowed for free accommodation and transportation provisions, Mingxing quickly developed three screenplays in 1933 that would require location shooting in such scenic locations. A group of 40 actors and crew travelled China, ultimately producing the silent films A Feather on Mount Tai, Go Northwest, and Romance on Mount Hua (all 1934). Meanwhile, Zhou Jianyun – through his friend Qian Xingcun – brought in leftist writers such as Xia Yan and Zheng Baiqi; this was intended, in part, to stave off the perception that the studio was unable to produce serious works. Mingxing made more than 40 films in 1933 and 1934, with production of silent films continuing until 1935.

Final years and closure

The success of Twin Sisters in 1934, a drama starring Hu Die and Xuan Jinglin that earned 200,000 yuan through domestic and international distribution, improved Mingxing's stability. In April 1934, the company reorganized itself, taking a three-tiered structure and establishing its own animation unit under the Wan brothers. In 1935, Zhou Jianyun and a group of Mingxing actors spent several months travelling to the United Soviet Socialist Republic, where they attended the inaugural Moscow International Film Festival, and Europe, where Zhou obtained insight into filmmaking.

However, the company's financial difficulties continued. These were compounded by the death of Zheng Zhengqiu in July 1935; the loss of his mediating role brought the personal issues of Mingxing's creative and financial directors, Zhang Shichuan and Zhou Jianyun respectively, to the forefront. Several efforts were made to improve Mingxing's standing. The company moved to new studios in the Maple Grove Bridge area of Chinese Shanghai, which Mingxing occupied in 1936 after a year leasing studios from another company. A hundred people, a third of the company's staff at the time, were fired in August 1935, and a loan of 160,000 yuan was received from the state-run Bank of Communications in June 1936. With these funds, a second studio simply known as Studio II was launched in July 1936 with the intent of accelerating production – and providing Zhang Shichuan and Zhou Jianyun with their own domains. Studio II was closed seven months later, having released only four films.

As the Second Sino-Japanese War continued, the Japanese conquered Shanghai in late 1937. Mingxing's film production stopped almost completely, with its premises used as barracks by Japanese troops. Although Zhang Shichuan attempted to stimulate film production, and several of Mingxing's pre-occupation films were premièred in 1938, the company did not survive the occupation. On 13 January 1939, the Mingxing warehouse was destroyed in a fire; its major competitors Tianyi and UPS likewise closed. Zhou Jianyun later moved to Hong Kong, where he established a series of short-lived studios before retiring from film in 1949. Zhang Shichuan, meanwhile, became the director of production at the Japanese-established China United Film Production Company; for this, he was subsequently accused of treason.