1920s Chinese Movies

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One of the earliest cinematic adaptation of Chinese classic novel Journey to the West. When seeking for food alone, Tang Xuanzang was kept prisoner by seven spider monsters who took the form of seven beautiful women. The Monkey King and the other two of Xuanzang's disciples managed to rescue him with the help of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva/Guanyin. They renounced the desire for lust and continued the quest for Buddhist Scriptures.

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A wife borrows a necklace for a party, and it is subsequently stolen. Her husband embezzles funds to pay for the loss, but he is discovered and arrested.

An orphaned brother and sister depend on each other for survival. But the young man's hot temper gets him sent to prison. When he is released, with the help and support of his little sister, he tries desperately to go straight, but every attempt is thwarted by an unfeeling and uncaring society.

To get over a breakup with his actress girlfriend, a playwright goes on holiday to a lakeside resort, where he meets a strangely mismatched couple, a man and his much younger wife. He and the wife begin an affair, during which she introduces him to some of the darker aspects of romance.

This partially-extant silent film focuses on the lives of people in rural China during the early twentieth century. Wang Guisheng (played by Wang Yuanlong) is an orphan who grew up at his uncle's, working as a farmhand. Since childhood, he has been close with his female cousin, Li Ah Zhen (played by Li Minghui), and they expect to marry. But when her mother dies of illness and overwork, Ah Zhen's father re-marries, and the evil stepmother connives to marry Ah Zhen off to the stepmother's nephew. Then a government representative comes to the village recruiting peasants to establish a new settlement on the borderlands, she persuades the despondent Guisheng to sign up. Guisheng leaves his love behind, only to find hardship on the frontier. Ah Zhen, who has fallen ill, is set upon by her groom on her wedding night...BUT the next morning his stabbed corpse is found in the bridal chamber and a body in a bridal gown is found down a well. WHAT HAS HAPPENED?!?!?!?!!

Hou Yao wrote, directed and starred in A Poet from the Sea (1927). It was shot in Stanley, Hong Kong. The surviving copy was only 23-minute long, but Hou Yao's romantic side was obvious through the scenic location and beautiful set-up. The love story between Poet (Hou Yao) and his lover (Lee Dan-dan) was pure and lyrical, a gem from China Sun Motion Picture Company (Shanghai) in the 1920s.

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Based on the classic Chinese play Romance of the Western Chamber, Way Down West follows the love story between a poor scholar and wealthy woman. Unable to marry due to their social status, this changes when a bandit attacks the monastery they are staying at demanding the woman's hand. Desperate, her mother promises her hand to whomever manages to defeat the bandit.

After being defeated in a fight by a local gang, local official Lu Fengyang sends his weak and sickly son Lu Xiaoqing to study with a master of the Kunlun school of martial arts. Recovered and strong, he comes upon the Red Lotus Temple, and puts up there for the night. Unable to sleep, he begins looking around the palatial temple, and discovers a room decorated with many images of Buddhist demons, and an altar to worship them... Purposely destroyed serial film whose 19 full length chapters (averaging 86 minutes each) originally ran 27 hours in length.

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Red Heroine was a smash hit on release and a prime example of the martial arts explosion of the late 20s (setting the template for later revivals), but with a crucial twist: in place of the typical, manly hero we have a swashbuckling woman. At first she’s a helpless abductee, then an unstoppable killing machine, fighting to stop a tyrannical warlord ravaging the countryside and enslaving numerous (very) scantily-clad young women.

The Mighty Hero Gan Fengchi 大俠甘鳳池 (1928) is a silent film released in China by the Great Wall Film Company during a peak in popularity of the wuxia (martial chivalry) genre. No copies were known to exist. Currently there's a 23-minute fragment incorrectly listed as this film due to the mistakes originated from China Film Archive, that fragment was actually two existing reels of another 1929 wuxia film "续甘氏两小侠" (Two Little Heroes Named Gan: Part II).

Cheng the fruit seller is in love with the daughter of his neighbor the doctor, but the good doctor won't let him marry her unless Chang finds him more patients...

This epic version of the Mulan tale was an early epic, shot on location in Northern China using hundreds of extras. It is the story of Hua Mulan, a young woman who takes her fathers place in the army as he is unwell. She gains glory but must eventually deal with her deception.

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A silent film based on the legend of Hua Mulan, released by Tianyi Film Company and directed by Li Pingqian. This silent film holds the distinction of being the first ever full-length feature film about Hua Mulan. Mulan is betrothed to a young man when war arrives and their wedding ceremony has to be put on hold. As her fiancé enlists in the army, so too does the filial Mulan, disguised as a man in place of her ailing father. These new plot twists lead to comedic moments when Mulan encounters her fiancé during training and he does not recognize her.

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