As a close relative to Chinese film, traditional Chinese opera has provided not only the earliest subjects but also the visual genealogy, the narrative logic, the spatial aesthetics and the cinematic score and music for early Chinese films. People have always wondered why early Chinese films turned the camera lens at the traditional stage art of Peking opera, particularly its martial arts plays? Some well-known Peking opera works, including Ding Jun Shan played by Tan Xinpei, Qing Shi Shan by Yu Jusheng and Zhu Wenying, and Golden Jaguar by Yu Jusheng's son Yu Zhending, were inspirations and direct resources to many early Chinese films, which didn’t focus on urban life as the early French filmmakers did. A reliable explanation to this was that opera films were able to attract a large number of opera-goers and conveniently transfer their enthusiasm for operas to films, therefore generating the first generation of film audience in China. Opera films would not only satisfy the opera fans’ demand for opera viewing but also facilitate the commercialization of films in this country at its first stage. Although history is not premised on “guessing”, for historical researcher it is usually a starting point to establish a necessary causal link between different “guesses” and to detect the facts from the “guesses”.

The historical evolution of ancient Chinese Yingxi

The origin of Chinese artistic performance can be traced back to the ancient ritual dances. With the changes of dynasties and times, the performative forms of stage art were constantly being renovated. According to the historical recording in Collection by Emperor Wen in Han Dynasty, “hundreds of plays began in the Qin and Han dynasties’ Manyan play whose main techniques included wire walking, sword swallowing, fire-walking, and building hunting.” (Chen 2011). The so-called Mangyan play is a kind of folk performance and acrobatic activity that arose in China during the Qin and Han dynasties. Its development and evolution eventually became the progenitor of Chinese opera. The so-called “hundred plays” in history and literature is a collective name for a variety of performances developed from traditional folk music and acrobatic skills in ancient China including singing, dancing, instrument playing, juggling, martial arts, acrobatics, magic and miscellaneous dramas, etc. The performative forms varied from time to time, and the performance venues also changed from time to time. In the pre-Qin dynasty, plays were mainly performed inside the imperial palace, and in the North and South dynasty, such plays were performed in temples, and in the Song dynasty, they could be seen in markets and restaurants. Generally, there had been a wide variety of performing activities at the imperial court and among the populace in ancient China. The main activities include dancing, music playing, opera, comedy (burlesque), puppetry (shadow play) and story-telling. The puppet show is the closest to shadow play in its artistic expression. The main difference between the two is that the former is an acrobatic show, while the latter has evolved into a form of drama plays with characters, plots and performances (Ye 2017a). There are also some activities which resemble puppet show but do not have backstage performers, such as clay puppets, paper puppets and figure paintings. Therefore, in terms of artistic genesis, puppet shows can be considered to be a very close relative to modern shadow plays.

About the origin of Yingxi in ancient China, the most accepted view is that it can be traced back to as early as Han Dynasty. As a popular folk art instructed orally from generation to generation, Chinese shadow play has a history of more than 2000 years. Its most essential artistic feature is “presenting shadow with light”. It is said that there was a legacy of feasting, singing and dancing in the Han’s imperial court, pursuing a life of pleasure and extravagance. According to the Miscellaneous Records of Xijing, “Lady Qi of Emperor Gao was good at drumming… and dancing with the folded sleeves, therefore hundreds of maidservants shall practice with her. All emperor’s wives and ladies sang in unison, with their voices rising into the cloud beautifully.” (Ge 1993). At that time, the royal and aristocracy had a preference for integrating music and dancing into their lives. Liu An wrote in Huainan Honglie—the Jing training that “delightful moves turn into dancing, dancing inspires singing, then musical performance, as if exciting beasts dance to the music …… so do bells and drums, pipes and xiao, dry chi and feather banner, all decorated with joy.” (Liu 2006). In such circumstance, China’s “hundred plays came into being under this fashion of singing and dancing” (Ye 2017b). However, apart from those imperially rooted art forms, are there any other art was formed during this era of extravagance and pleasure ?

According to historical recordings, after the death of Lady Li during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, “the emperor Wu missed the lady greatly and couldn’t stop thinking about her. A scholar from Qi came to see the emperor and claimed that he could summon Lady Li’s spirit. Then he set the lamps and candles in a tent and prepared some old wine and feast. The emperor was asked to sit in the other tent being allowed only a distant look at the reappearance of Lady Li”. (Gu 1975) Lady Li was the sister of Emperor Wu's favorite minister Li Yannian and her story was recorded in the Biography of Imperial Relatives. Based on this book, Emperor Wu wrote a poem after seeing the unattainable shadow of Lady Li: “Real? Unreal? I stood and stared, but why did you come so late?” (Gu 1975) This is a historical recording of using shadow play to create an image of the dead lover. At that time, presenting the human shadows required lighting candles inside a tent and viewers sitting outside the tent. The candles were placed in different spots in order to project the shadow of a dancing figure onto the tent. People sitting outside the tent therefore were able to see the shadow, which was then called shadow play. This very same story was retold in Gao Cheng's Origins of Things and Affairs in Song dynasty except that the scholar was said to be a Buddhist. In that book, the monk applied the same art to summon the “soul” of Lady Li for Emperor Wu. “The origin of shadow play is related to the death of Lady Li and Emperor Wu’s memorial of her. Qi scholar Shaoweng is said to be able to summon the lady’s soul, then the Emperor ordered him to the palace. At night Shaoweng set up a square curtain, a few lamps and candles, the emperor sat at beside the curtain and was able to see the image of his beloved lady. From then on, shadow play came into being.” (Gao and Li 1989) This writing is in the article Zhang’s Lantern and Candle and is the similar as the recording in The Book of Han, which also describes the use of candlelight to create reflection of Lady Li on a curtain(veil), so as to satisfy Emperor Wu's longing for his beloved and to relieve his sadness. This is considered by Chinese opera historians as “the exact historical origin of shadow play theater.” (Dong 1983) If we take the year 141 B.C. as the beginning of Chinese shadow play, when Emperor Wu died, it is still more than 2000 years before modern film was introduced to China.

The origin of shadow play is also found Wang Jia's Gleanings in Jin Dynasty. Although the specific details of shadow play in these books vary slightly, they all confirmed that the ancient Chinese already knew how to use light and shadow to create a projection of illusion to remember their deceased relatives, to send their thoughts to their predecessors, and to visualize their imagination of their eternal love. Although the art of shadow play recorded at that time is only to satisfy the emperor's personal fantasy, through the use of candlelight, curtains, and shadows, ancient Chinese were able to send their wishes and express their sentiments, and although this imaginative performance activity cannot be considered a great invention in the history of Chinese art, it interestingly coincides with the modern cinematic art two thousand years later.

In the Song Dynasty, according to Notes of the Capital City, a historical recording of activities in its capital city, hand shadow play was listed as one of the “miscellaneous arts” together with bottle kicking, bowl juggling, firecracker setting, marble gaming, etc. (Liao and Liu 2000a) Ancient Chinese described the magic of shadow play with poems, “With three feet of raw silk for the stage, showing with all by ten fingers. Sometimes under the bright moonlight, winning laughs by master skills.” (Mai 1997) Wu Zimu also recorded the development of shadow play in Notes of the Capital City as “people at the beginning carve arrowheads and make the figure with plain paper, later with colored leather.” (Wu et al. 1993) He then wrote about the Southern Song Dynasty capital Lin'an (now Hangzhou)’s secular life in his Recordings of Mengliang. In volume 20 on the “hundred plays and tricks”, he put the involvement of shadow play with more details. “At the beginning, craftsmen at the capital Bianjing carve on plain paper, later with more delicacy, on sheepskin, decorating with coloring makeups.” (Wu 1984) These two kinds of shadow play made of paper and leather, manipulated by artists are considered to be the authentic form of Chinese shadow play. (Wu 1984) The original shadow play was made of uncolored paper, and then it was improved into a leather shadow. Through the manipulation of a few artists on a white curtain, it not only expresses earthly sorrow and happiness of the populace, but also recreates the ancient battle scene and presents the religious images of gods, goddesses and Buddhas. For this reason, shadow plays have the reputation of “recounting a thousand ancient events with a few lines and moving millions of soldiers with only two hands” (Unknown).

The classical novel "The Chronicles of Luang Huan" of Yuan Dynasty contains many myths and legends. Although there are different accounts of its exact written time, there is an article about the art of shadow play, “Yang Taijin killed Emperor Ming’s favorite concubine Yang Yuhuan at Mawei, the emperor was buried in sorrow day and night. A Taoist priest came to lessen his pain by projection Yuhuan’s image with shadow playing skill. He requested a painting of Yuhuan, a five-color tent, an altar and chanted incantations. Under lights, smokes from burning incense formed an image of Yuhuan in the dusk. Sprinkled with some five-color finely grounded mineral powder and drugs, the image become extremely vivid…” (Zhang 1985) Although this story about the reappearance of Concubine Yang Yuhuan is somewhat fictional, its inspiration is again the mechanism of shadow play. The Taoist priest’s deliberate use of a tent, paintings and lighting is a complete representation shadow theater.

Prior to the formation of Yuan and Ming play writing, Chinese “theater” activities consisted of six independent or mixed art forms: dance, music, opera, parody, comic show, puppetry (shadow play) and shuochang arts (singing and talking arts). It was not until the importation of Western drama that the Chinese opera stage, based on these six traditional art forms, blended with elements of Western drama to gradually form a comprehensive performance art that is distinct from other arts, featuring “singing, acting, reciting, and martial art”. (Liao and Liu 2000b) Throughout its history, Chinese traditional opera has not only produced generations of excellent players and even stars but also many fans who can well verse some popular plays in opera. Their enthusiasm to opera has played a significant role in the development of Chinese opera. This early fan culture gradually formed an actor-centered feature highlighting the artistic charisma of the individual actors, becoming an artistic tradition that cannot be ignored in the history of Chinese opera art.

In Ming dynasty, the famous writer Feng Menglong described a similar story in Collection of Romance (Qingshi Leilue). In his writing, “A Taoist priest took out the brush from his sleeve, asked for a piece of yellow silk fabric, recited the incantation and drew a woman's image. His drawing was similar to the human form with the heaven blessing. The priest had a fast to pay his repect to it, concentrated on his mind for three days and nights. He then burned the talisman and lighted the incantation, with smoking and puffing lingering on the image. Next, he ordered the maid to blow dry the image one by one. At the time of dusk, he invited the emperor to enter the tent in candlelight” (Feng 2011). This coloured shadow plays by the Taoist priest for the emperor Li Shimin were several hundred years after the first recording of the black and white shadow plays in the Han dynasty, the essential mechanism remained the same, both used likable images to evoke people's fantasies, so as to comfort their innermost remembrance of the beloved.

If the legendary stories for those ancient emperors was only a superstitious manipulation of shadow playing skills, the real start o Chinese shadow play theater is when it became a folk art in Song Dynasty. Jiang Kui wrote a famous poem entitled Lyrics of the Lamp, “The moon is cold when the lamplight is dimmed, the dancers often return late at night, they are still absorbed in their performance, they linger on the street and dance with their shadows.” (Jiang and Sun 1986) This shows that the concept of shadow playing was already popular to the ordinary people in Song. It was then no longer a subjective imagination of the poets and writers, but a form of folk art for entertainment in the city life. At that time, the traditional Chinese shadow play was divided into hand shadow play, paper shadow play and skin shadow play. Hand shadow play is a game of finger-shaping projection, the simplest and most primitive type of shadow play, using a lamp to project the shadow of the ten fingers on the mantle, that is, reflecting hand on the wall to form the shape of birds, animals and humans, which is most fancied by children.

According to historical records, shadow play was once used as an entertaining activity in the palace and the army in Yuan Dynasty. It was introduced to Europe and west Asia by Genghis Khan’s army on his expeditions to the west. In the early fourteenth century, a Persian historian, Rashideg, recorded an interesting account of spreading of shadow play. “When Genghis Khan's son succeeded to the throne, he sent actors to Persia to speak about this kind of shadow play theater.” (Chen and Liu 1999) In 1767 a French missionary named Guyard brought back a entire set of shadow play and the playing skills back to France which soon became a popular art there. In 1776 the art of shadow play was introduced to England. (Chen and Liu 1999) No one can conclude whether there is any definite connection between the modern films invented in France and the ancient Chinese shadow puppetry. If there is a breakthrough in this conjecture, not only the history of Chinese cinema but also the whole history of world cinema will be rewritten. However, it is assured that Chinese cinema has a specific kinship with Chinese shadow play (including shadow puppets), and this link of the two has led to many aesthetic features of Chinese cinema, its artistic and the historical development which differs it from the world cinema.

In Ming Dynasty, shadow play continued its popularity in cities and villages. It was not only loved by the general public, but also respected by the literary scholars. Qu You, the author of The New Collections of Night Stories, a collection of popular fictional stories, once wrote a poem in praise of shadow plays, “The new shadow play house open in the south market, the bright lamps and candles shine on the rise and fall of the nation. Let's watch the army crossing the Wujiang River, and praise the fearless heroes.” This passage indicates that the Ming shadow play not only retained the tradition of fictional story-telling, but also actively showed great concern for the historical events and national fate. Although shadow plays are not yet comparable to the literary achievement in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the historical stories expressed with light and shadow did have some special effects over those words on paper.

Shadow play became more popular in the Qing Dynasty throughout China. Historical records of shadow play performances can be found in all provinces in China. There is also a distinction between the southern and northern shadow plays. In Hebei, a province in northern China, people called shadow plays “Luanzhou shadow play theatre”, although many famous players were from Leting. In Beijing, they are divided into two schools, the east city school and the west city school. According to Chang Renxia’s research, “The east city school is centered in Luanzhou and is scattered throughout the northeast counties, most prevalent in Leting, Baodi, Yutian, Jixian, Pingdong, Changli, Fengrun, Zunhua, and Qian'an counties. The west city school is centered in Zhuozhou and is scattered in Yuncheng, Shanxi, Henan, Xi'an, Shaanxi and Gansu to the west of Beijing. The east city school’s shadows are small, carved and painted with color and oil. The shadows of the west city school are bigger, painted only with color only.” (Dong 1983) The shadow play in south China is mainly circulated in the area of Zhejiang.

Zhou Yuanding of the Qing Dynasty once wrote a special treatise On Shadow Play. At that time, in the Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province, theatrical performances were in full swing. The shadow play was commonly known as the “small play”, while the Qinqiang opera was called the “big play”. Why this all-round scholar Zhou Yuanding, who was good at writing poems and lyrics, composing, carving seals and playing musical instruments, was fond of small opera? He claimed that in the small opera “one person plays several roles, two hands can move several people, performing their entering, exiting, greeting and even battling with spears and swords, fighting in a variety of ways, and playing the mysterious creatures like the gods, monsters and dragons, which is extremely skillful and difficult”. He further emphasized that small operas “expresses with both silence and sound, joy and sorrow, satire and anger, and conveys scenes of the past and the present, and attract the viewers to watch with pleasure” (Chen 2011). Here Zhou Yuanding provided a vivid description of the ancient shadow play performances. Through his description, we know that shadow play is not a moniker of cinema, but a rich cultural and artistic legacy with a long history.

When Cao Dagong, an early Chinese film scholar, talked about the origin of film art, he once said, “First there was the "ballad" without rhyme, which evolved into “poetry” with rhyme, and then into “opera” on the stage. In other words, rhyming “songs” turned into rhyming “poems” and lastly “operas” on stage. For the acting, first there was the messy “dancing”, which evolved into the orderly “dancing”, then there was the “puppet play”, and the beautiful “dancing opera”. Later the “puppet drama”was formed, and then the “dance drama” and the early "vernacular drama", lastly the naturalistic “expression drama”. For shadow plays, first, there was “hand shadow play”, which later developed into the entertaining show of “revolving lantern”, and then evolved into the “Luanzhou shadow” played by several actors. …and then the modern “photography” and “slides” projection. (Cao 1996) In the view of film theorists, film, like many other arts, has undergone an evolutionary process from the primary to the modern. Along the evolving of Chinese films, many elements of traditional Chinese culture have been incorporated into the mechanism of cinema and have contributed to the development of cinema from multiple aspects.

Similar features of ancient Chinese shadow plays and modern films

To sum up, the concept of Yingxi mainly has three indications in the Chinese history. First, it refers to the earliest form shadow playing featured by presentation of human shadows reflected on the curtain in the palace; second, it is the collective name of folk performances by means of “light and shadow” which later developed into the shadow and puppet play theater; lastly, it is also used by theorists to refer to the early modern cinema in China.

In retrospect, compared with the traditional Chinese art forms—music, dancing, fine art and literature—the main characteristic of Chinese “shadow play” is that it is not a single artistic creation or a simple stage performance, but a joint creation of many people and different arts. It is an artistic activity that requires the participation of many people. It also requires the aid of light to produce the shadow. The study of ancient shadow plays is not only important for the study of the pre-history of Chinese cinema, but also for the study of evolving history of cinema itself, as its mechanism and artistic expression is indeed of the same root with modern cinema.

1. As popular cultural entertainment, both shadow plays and films need a public place for performing (screening) and a viewing space for the audience. In terms of reception, they are different from poetry, novels, paintings and musical works that rely on individual reading and appreciation. Either in small venues in ancient markets, public theaters and tea houses, or modern theaters and movie houses, shadow plays and contemporary films are both shown in a public space.

2. Since shadow plays and films are viewed collectively in a public place, they are bound to have certain psychological orientation to the audience and therefore would produce some social effect. Despite their entertaining nature, they both have certain explicit or implicit influence on the mentality and psychology of their audience.

3. As a specialized performing art, they both require specialized personnel to master relevant skills, thus gradually forming an industry and a walk of life. Both shadow plays and cinema are commercialized and sustainable industry. They gradually have cultivated their professional talents, stabilized their performing locations, and formed a market-based and viewer-oriented business mechanism.

4. As art forms whose main purpose is cultural entertainment, they both have specific commercial attributes, and both establish their mode of communication with the audience through performance/screening. The economic index of the market becomes an important reference for evaluating these two art forms and sometimes shapes their historical development.

5. As socialized performing art, they both have polarized presenting/viewing contexts, with the actors on stage/screen and the viewers watching in the dark, separated by the stage/screen. Therefore, they both produce certain dream-like effects, especially the latter which would even have a hypnotic and emulative effect on the audience.

6. As an imagery art form, they are both presented to the viewers through projections on a curtain or a screen despite the fact that the lighting sources are different: ancient shadow plays rely on firelight, candlelight and natural light to present expressions; films, on the other hand, re-projects the photographed images onto the screen through chemical light-sensitive and digital technology to obtain a realistic presentation.

In short, ancient shadow play is consistent with modern cinema in many aspects. In this sense, recognizing the pre-historic forms of films is a necessary prerequisite for our understanding of the social and aesthetic nature of film art. Likewise, an analysis of contemporary film forms will also help us understand the history of cinema more profoundly. Just as Marx said, “Human anatomy is a key to monkey anatomy; the mechanism of the higher animals that are manifested in the lower animals can, on the contrary, be understood only after the higher animals themselves have been revealed.” (Marx 1971) Conversely, if we go after history in isolation, we may be able to obtain certain historical facts, but our knowledge is unilateral, as the various relationships between historical facts and reality might have been ignored. We know that the early form of Chinese cinema was called “Yingxi” and only later changed to the new name—film. (Li 1995a) The term “Yingxi” did not come into existence after the introduction of films into China but long before that. In ancient China, it had different names in different nationalities and different historical periods. Later generations also applied this unified mandarin term to name modern film. Film art in China has gradually become prosperous only when it was fused with various other traditional arts (shadow plays, martial arts, Chinese operas, dance, literature and music).

Along the history of Chinese opera, the preference of audience has always been the most significant influence of its artistic and commercial development. Especially in the era when traditional Chinese opera was the dominate popular art. For hundreds of years, opera used to be the main form of cultural consumption in the leisure life of the public. In fact, traditional operas not only provided their fans with entertainment, but also enabled them to enter a dream-like world with the surrealistic singing and dancing on stage and experience the joys and sorrows with the performers. When the show was over, the audience had to return to the real world to worry about the daily necessities of bread and milk. These psychological effects are intrinsically the same with modern films. When the movie-goers enter the theater together, the social hierarchical differences and the disparity between the rich and the poor are temporarily erased, while a virtual, symbolic and imaginary world was set up. Although after the show, the audience have to return to their reality life filled with mixed blessings, the opera has left them a collective memory of releasing from the constraints of life, giving them a leak from the real worries. The “madmen” on stage and the “fools” off stage worked together creating a world that symbolically solves the problems together. In terms of the social function, there is also no fundamental difference between today’s modern films and operas in ancient times except that the dream-making mechanism of films is more advanced producing more realistic, more graphic, and more sensual images than the traditional operas.

Yingxi, projecting story with light

In early Chinese film theories, “Yingxi” is often synonymous with films, but the meaning contained in this term is different. We cannot assume that anyone who refers to film as “Yingxi” adheres to a conception of film that equates film aesthetics with and is subordinate to traditional theater and opera aesthetics, or that to call it “Yingxi” is to advocate a theater-based understanding of films. For example, Xu Zhuozhuo's 1924 monograph of On Yingxi has been considered “the first Chinese film theory work” by film historians (Li 1995b). Although he first discussed the relationship between film and theater, and tried to establish the differences and similarities between films and theater art from an artistic perspective, so as to establish a boundary between the artistic boundaries of film. Yet, more than once, the author emphasizes that films are not theater. This point of view can be said to be the starting point of the theoretical discussion of Xu’s book. The author does not equal films with theater just because the book is titled On Yingxi, but fully discusses the inherent differences between films and theater under the title of cinema. The book is centered on the basic characteristics of film art. It covers “elements of film drama” “forms and classifications of film drama” “sense-making and original authorship” “editing and editorship”, based on a series of studies on film art. The author expresses his aesthetic vision of cinema through the elaboration of a series of problems in the creation of cinematic art. The author named this work On Yingxi because Yingxi was a commonly used term for film at that time. This does not necessarily mean that the aesthetics of cinema is seen as a subordinate to the aesthetics of theater. Gu Fenfu once said that the origin of film art were photography, slides, together with musicals and vernacular theater. He even believed that “films have the highest literary position and the most literary value” (Gu 1921a). It was a common perception in the early silent film era that theatre art was placed before and above film. At that time, it was still a matter of debate as to whether shadow theater was an art. The reason why people considered novels and plays to be art, but were not sure about films “was because novels and plays had permanent effectiveness on people and society while films often did not.” (Hu 1996).

Certainly, early Chinese film artists, whether based on the tradition of Chinese stage art or the real-life situation of Chinese cinema, closely linked film with theatre and claiming the theory of films as “the aesthetics of Yingxi” (Chen 1986b). That is to say, Chinese film artists at that time still regarded film as a special form of theater art indicating that “Yingxi is a kind of theater.” (Zhong 1986) This is owing to their accepted knowledge that the story is the core of the film, while the image is the package, the shell, or the form. At the same time, we should also notice that early Chinese film theories were not uniformly agreed upon “the aesthetics of Yingxi”. They did explore the aesthetic properties of film art itself. Especially with the continuous development and changes of cinema, the connotation of film theories has also undergone fundamental changes, gradually evolving from a traditional opera-based cinematic ontology to an art-based one. Although the concept of shadow theater has not changed literally, it is still called Yingxi, but its inner meaning has gradually transformed and evolved. Yingxi as an academic term does not mean that scholars were placing the aesthetics of theater above the aesthetics of films. In the development of early Chinese cinema, many film theorists began to discuss the multiple connotations of shadow theater in terms of the material carrier, technical features, and cultural functions of film.

Gu Kenfu, who later founded the Journal of Yingxi, set “promoting the value of films as compared to literature and fine art” (Ding 2017) as his primary goal, emphasizing film’s visual function of presenting both static scenes and dynamic movements instantly. In his view, the literary composition of fiction is applied to film making and editing. This advocacy of cinematic visual appealing and the affirmation of literary styling indicate that film was not considered a “shadow” of traditional opera and its unique features had been noticed through the comparative study with those traditional arts. When talking about the origins of Chinese cinema, Gu Kenfu said, “The essence of film is the triad of technology, literature, and science.” (Gu 1921b) In tracing the historical origins of Chinese films, Zhou Jianyun once said, “films was introduced to China after photograph, electric lights and phonograph”. (Zhou 1921) Not only that, he also emphasized the artistic distinction and differences between films and stage drama. He pointed out that “the movements and expressions in films are more delicate and natural than those of the stage drama.” (Zhou and Wang 1992) In The Philosophy of Yingxi, Ruan Yicheng also pointed out, “(1) films are beyond space and time; (2) films are surrealist;(3) films are superhuman.” (Ruan 1996) He believes that the first film genre that can transcend space and time is the newsreel; the second is the landscape film; and the third type which also transcends the reality of human existence is the historical costume film. Although these early criticisms still use the terminology of Yingxi, their connotation has gone far beyond the drama-based view of shadow play. Another film scholar Hou Yao also emphasized the inherent difference between stage theatre and films. “Other dramas cannot be realistic because of the limitations of the stage …… but not films, which are able to project Mount Tai and even real fire onto the screen. The projections resemble the real so much because they are photographed images of the real. In short, theaters are stage centered, while films are staging the universe.” (Hou 1926a).

In his aesthetic concept, the connotation of Yingxi is no longer the traditional shadow theatre, but a kind of visual art that crosses the boundaries of time and space. For the connection between film and other arts, Hou Yao pays special attention to the influence of literature on film. He said, “A literary work must have the four elements —sentiment, thought, imagination and form. All apply to film. Film is a kind of literature, a kind of living literature.” (Hou 1926b) Obviously, in the early history of Chinese cinema, the investigation of the concept of Yingxi also indicated the self-investigation of film art by Chinese researchers. Today use the term “Dianying” (electric shadows) for film, but this unified term also holds different connotations. Therefore, we can reach a statement that the term Yingxi us not only used to emphasize the use of light and shadow, but also to represent the stories of films throughout the history of China.

Early Chinese film theorists also investigated the expressive power of language. They argued that film was not like novels and plays but were superior to literary works in terms of creating the realistic sense with its unique acting, time and spacial features. (Hu 1996) Therefore the unique charm of films is highly recognized and emphasized by them. Undoubtedly, most Chinese filmmakers’ understanding of film and their creative methods were profoundly influenced by the traditional Chinese opera art, and the concept of Yingxi with its strong theatrical overtones became the mainstream aesthetics for Chinese filmmakers for a long time. Consequently, many film artists placed more focus on the drama and plot than the camera and visual effects, reflecting a strong Chinese opera like feature, which to a large extent has determined the artistic style of Chinese mainstream films.

Based on a general judgment of the artistic attributes of Chinese cinema, the aesthetics of Yingxi undoubtedly plays an epoch-making role to Chinese cinema. What we would like to emphasize here is that while early Chinese cinema actively borrowed from traditional Chinese opera, it also generated a variety of styles and film genres with distinguishing cinematic features. For example, The Red Pink Skull (1922) was adapted from the foreign detective novel The Ten Sisters of the Insurance Party and referred to American detective film genre in its production. Sea Oath (1922) is about the romance between a poor painter and a beautiful woman featuring “the romantic happy ending” pattern. Yan Ruisheng, the first Chinese long feature film was based on a true murder case. None of those films was an extension or a remake of any previous opera plays. The production was actually indicating “a historical turn from the infant period of Chinese cinema to the scale production and studio production period”. (Cheng 1963) The list goes on and on. It is clear that traditional Chinese opera was not the only source for early Chinese films.

Two kinds of inheritance from traditional opera in Chinese film

Ancient Chinese opera is not only a classic form of traditional Chinese art, but also a cultural carrier deeply embedded in the Chinese history. It expresses the joys and sorrows of our ancestors in the real life and records the love and hate of our predecessors in their imagined world. To some extent, Chinese opera represents the spiritual world of our people and is known as our “national essence” (国粹) and “Chinese intangible cultural heritage”. In addition to the large number of opera documentaries in Chinese film making history, it is especially important to note that traditional Chinese opera has been inherently integrated into the body, blood and soul of Chinese film…

In the historical process of Chinese film’s inheritance and borrowing from traditional opera, there are two kinds of representation distinguished by two different ways of transmission and reproduction of opera art in film making. The first type is “documentation”, which is a faithful photographic recording of traditional opera shows, so that the entire show can be preserved and passed down through films. This kind of documentary of opera shows is actually what “Yingxi” literally means, that is, using films “ying” to play operas “xi”. After the founding of new China, a large number of opera films of this kind are made. They kept the artistic features of traditional opera in terms of singing, acting, and stage setting without making any changes, such as Cui Wei's Wild Boar Forest (1962), Cen Fan's Dream of the Red Chamber (1962), Xie Tian's The Presumptous Mr.Nobody (1979), Li Tie's Justice Bao (1980), Lin Feng's Romance of Spears (1985), Wang Hao-Wei and Li Chen-Sheng's The Ultimate Arena (2001), Xiao Feng's Silver Spears (2006), Zheng Da-Sheng's Officer Yu Chenglong (2009), Zhu Zhao-Wei's Saving the Orphan of Zhao (2010), Ding Yinnan's Sound of the Ninth Heaven (2011), and Xia Gang's Lady General Mu Takes the Command (2017). These films of classic Chinese traditional operas not only contributed to the historical recording of traditional opera art, but also created a new genre for Chinese films.

However, this direct recording of opera shows has always been under aesthetic dispute between film and opera as to which is more important or who should be more dominant. What do the moviegoers really want to see on the big screen? Opera, films, or a combination of both. This is the most direct and challenging question encountered by the directors of opera films. Should we present the traditional expressive performances of operas onto the screen in their entirety, or should we turn the expressive stage scenes into realistic settings? These seemingly simple questions actually determine whether such works are cinematic opera or opera-like cinema. Just like the song Ode to the Pear Blossom composed by Mr. Mei Baojiu for the symphonic Peking opera The Great Tang Dynasty, opera fans regard it as a classic performance of Peking opera, while critics ironically call it a “Peking song”. The evaluation of artworks has always been so indefinite and opinions always vary. Different directors may have different aesthetic orientations. One may prefer to transform operas into the form of films, while another may prefer to keep what operas originally are. Although it is difficult to give a unified and ever lasting aesthetic norm for opera films, the film has constantly been obtaining inspiration and cultural essence from operas, while operas have found a new space for prosperity through films. Since 1981, the Golden Rooster Award for Chinese Cinema has been awarding the best opera film every year, aiming to promote the preservation and development of traditional Chinese opera, and to honor those outstanding works so that they can be seen in the form of filmic images by future viewers.

The second kind of inheritance is “fragmentary reproduction” of opera films. This means that, instead of recording the complete stage opera performance with camera, certain sections or artistic elements of the opera are selected and “implanted” into films, so that the stories and plots of the opera are mirrored in the films and complement the thematic expression of the film. However, there are many criticisms on the first type of “documenting” opera films but little discussion on the second type.

The reason why opera elements, especially opera singing often appears in our national films is not only because many of our audience and film makers love traditional operas, but also because it has been the most natural expression of Chinese sentiments for centuries. Chinese people often instinctively turn to opera singing when we express our emotional excitements and passionate outbursts. Therefore, in Chinese films, we often insert opera elements into the emotional moments. Hu Jinquan’s film Fury (1970) is an excellent example adapted from the opera Divergence (San Chakou) which is about general Jiao Zan in Song dynasty. Jiao came across a shady store on his exile and got into a fierce fight. The sound track and scenes of Dragon Inn (1967) is almost entirely of Beijing opera, as well as its action scenes which are accompanied by the typical Beijing opera drumbeats. The martial art design in the film are strongly influenced by Peking Opera martial arts movement. The characters’ going back and forth in the small inn resembles the movement on the opera stage. Another martial art film The Chivalrous Daughter (1970) on the other hand features classical Chinese folk music as the background music in order to create a mysterious and ethereal atmosphere for the film.

In the biographical film Iron Man—Wang Jinxi (2009), which depicts the oil mining worker Wang Jinxi’s heroic story and spirit of dedication to the country. In the film, when Wang Jinxi and his colleagues are gathering in the workers’ union, they proudly sang the famous Qin opera play—To Killthe Shan Boy. Qin opera is the traditional opera in west China and is well-known for the high pitching and rising tones. This rugged and bold musical feature of Qin opera and the high-spirited Chinese oil workers are deeply integrated together in the film. To Kill the Shan Boy is about the story of Shan Xiongxin, a patriotic boy in Heros in sui and tang Dynasties, who was killed because he refused to surrender to the young general of Tang (Li Shimin). His spirit of perseverance and virtue of patriotic loyalty in the face of danger, is the same as that of the oil workers in the 1960s’ new China, who “would rather live 20 years less or even sacrifice their lives to build the oil field for the country”. In the war film The Eight Hundred (2020), a film about the resistance against Japanese invasion in a warehouse in Shanghai, the opera troupe master (played by Ma Yingwu) t on a special act from the classic Peking opera play Fight the Sliding Carts (also named as Niutou Hill, adapted from the historical story of national hero Yue Fei and his his soldiers fighting with Jin troops to protect the homeland). When the exciting martial art act and high pitching Peking opera drumbeats are cross edited with the gun fire battling scenes in Sihang warehouse, an epic expression of the righteousness and nationalism is naturally established. The dramatic history in the opera act and the realistic battling in the warehouse are interwoven by a heroic spirit that has been celebrated throughout the human civilization despite the changes in time and space …

The influence of traditional Chinese opera is almost omnipresent in Chinese films. Sometimes it highlights the aesthetic character of the film, either a kind of sad and desolate sentiment, or some somber and bold spirituality; sometimes opera elements help to reveal the mentality of the characters either when they are calm and peaceful or excited and passionate. This distinctive feature of emotional expression and character building is inherent from the traditional Chinese opera’s classification of the characters as Sheng, Dan, Jing, Mao and Ugly (the male roles, the female roles, the painted face and the comic roles) which allows the audience to categorize the characters easily by their costume and makeups. This classification of characters is found in many popular films today. In Farewell My Concubine (1993), opera playing mingles with the two leading roles’ personality and life. For Cheng Dieyi, Peking opera means everything and the rules of opera acting are allso the rules of life; for Duan Xiaolou, acting is only acting, the personal life and the stage life can never be merged into one. The border of the opera stage becomes a watershed in the film revealing two different realms of life. In Nanjing! Nanjing! (2009), Xiao Mei sings the classic Yue opera play Liang Zhu—Cao Qiao Swear in an elegant and gentle style at first while in a sad and desperate tune after she was abused by the Japanese invaders. In the spy film The Message (2009), opera singing is the secret code for transmitting message among undercover Party members. By making a subtle change to the original tune, the Party intelligence officer passes on the message to successfully rescue peer comrades from being caught …

What we can imagine is the enormous artistic heritage our traditional Chinese opera has brought to films and what cannot imagine is what our Chinese film would have been without the support and integration of traditional Chinese opera.