ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the evolution of China’s production practices before 1937 and focusses on its mode of production in comparison with its American counterparts. Scholars have found abundant evidence of how Chinese film practitioners learned from Hollywood in such areas as camera movement, montage, and film production and exhibition. The mode of production in Chinese studios was no exception. This chapter will show that in the early twentieth century, China’s mode of production, on one hand, progressed in stages similar to those of Hollywood, from the cameraman system to the central producer system. On the other hand, however, Chinese production maintained its own characteristics, some of which would negatively impact the film industry. One particular characteristic – the strong position of the directors in the central producer system – significantly contributed to the vulnerability and the lack of enduring success of the Chinese film industry in the 1930s.
