Wenhua Film Company

The Wenhua Film Company (simplified Chinese: 文华影业公司; traditional Chinese: 文華影業公司; pinyin: Wénhuà yǐngyè gōngsī; lit.: 'Culture China Film Company') was a major privately owned film production company of the immediate post-war period in China.[1]

Wenhua Film Company
文華影業公司
IndustryFilm
Founded1946
FounderWu Xingzai
Defunct1952
Headquarters
Shanghai
,
China
Key people
Shi Hui, Fei Mu, Huang Zuolin, Eileen Chang

History

The film company was founded in 1946 by Wu Xingzai, a businessman who had previously controlled assets of the Lianhua Film Company during the mid-1930s.[1] With Wenhua, Wu desired to have a film studio devoted to making smaller-budget art films, sophisticated comedies, and high-minded dramas. These films often focused on contemporary social issues such as feminism and adaptations of Western literature. These included Night Inn (1947), an adaptation of Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, and starring Zhou Xuan.[2] but also comedies such as the Sang Hu-Eileen Chang collaboration, Long Live the Missus! (1947). During this early period, however, the company is perhaps best known as the producer of Fei Mu's masterpiece, Spring in a Small Town (1948).[1]

Like other private studios, notably Kunlun Film Company, Wenhua continued in operation after the Communist takeover, putting out several films with the popular actor-director Shi Hui, including This Life of Mine (1950) (based on a novella by Lao She), Corruption (1950) (based on a work by Mao Dun), and the war film Platoon Commander Guan (1951). Yet many of these postwar films, particularly 1950's Peaceful Spring, were also criticized as hewing too close to Wenhua's pre-Communist humanist tradition.[3] By 1952, Shi Hui had fallen out of the Party's favor, and Wenhua, like the other remaining private studios in Shanghai, was consolidated under state ownership.[4]

Notable films
Year English Title Chinese Title Director Cast
1946 Phony Phoenixes 假凤虚凰 Huang Zuolin Shi Hui, Li Lihua
1947 Bright Day 艳阳天 Cao Yu Shi Hui, Li Lihua
1947 Long Live the Missus! 太太万岁 Sang Hu Shangguan Yunzhu, Shi Hui
1947 Night Inn 夜店 Huang Zuolin Zhou Xuan
1948 Spring in a Small Town 小城之春 Fei Mu Wei Wei, Zhang Hongmei, Li Wei
1949 Miserable at Middle Age 哀乐中年 Sang Hu Shi Hui
1950 This Life of Mine 我这一辈子 Shi Hui Shi Hui
1950 Peaceful Spring 太平春 Sang Hu Shi Hui
1950 Ideological Problems 思想问题
1950 Corruption 腐蚀 Huang Zuolin Shi Hui
1951 Sisters Stand Up 姐姐妹妹站起来 Chen Xihe
1951 Platoon Commander Guan 关连长 Shi Hui Shi Hui
1951 A Window on America 美国之窗 Shi Hui, Huang Zuolin, Ye Ming
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References
  1. Zhang, p. 101.
  2. Zhang, p. 103-104,
  3. Brown & Pickowitz, p. 269-70.
  4. Brown & Pickowitz, p. 285.

Sources
  • Brown, Jeremy & Pickowicz, Paul. Dilemmas of Victory: The Early Years of the People's Republic of China. Harvard University Press, 2007. ISBN 0-674-02616-0.
  • Zhang, Yingjin. Chinese National Cinema. Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0-415-17290-X.


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