The first moving picture or “Western image drama” in China was shown in Shanghai in 1896, and the city went on to make some of the edgiest, trendiest anjd most meaningful films. Yao Minji goes to the movies.

The scene “Cave of the Silken Web” describes how the holy monk Xuanzang encounters seven beautiful young women who kidnap him and intend to eat his flesh to get stronger. The Monkey King discovers the “women” are actually spiders. He beats them with his magic cudgel and rescues the monk.

The spider’s silk is a metaphor for love, which entraps and strangles like a silk cord. With scenes of battle and beautiful women bathing, “Cave of the Silken Web” is a chapter in the Chinese classic “Journey to the West” often adapted into dramas, TV series, films, comics and video games.

Last month, a copy of the 1927 film “Cave of the Silken Web” — one of the earliest screen adaptations — was discovered in Norwegian National Library. It confirmed that the film had been shown in Norway in 1929 and possibly other European countries. Its copy in Shanghai was destroyed in the war.

The silent movie, around an hour long, was produced by one of the dozens of privately held Chinese film studios in Shanghai, the cradle of Chinese film and a major market for Western movies in the first half of 20th century.

At that time Western films, especially Hollywood movies, occupied the majority of silver screens in the city, but Chinese filmmakers and movie stars also made splashes and left behind some classic works.

“My father always took us to cinemas. I watched so many classic Hollywood movies back then, and some are my lifelong favorite, like ‘Waterloo Bridge’ and ‘Random Harvest.’ Even today, I love going to cinemas,” 87-year-old Ren Xiulian, who now lives in California, tells Shanghai Daily in a telephone interview. “Whenever I come back to Shanghai, I try to go to the Cathy Theater to watch a movie with my Shanghai relatives.”

Ren’s father worked for Western machinery companies and later started his own business trading with foreigners. The family often went to the Cathy Theater, one of the best that for a long time had showed only Western movies. The venue, on Huaihai Road M., has retained much of its original design and still operates today.

At the city’s peak of filmmaking in the 1930s and 1940s, there were nearly 150 production companies making more than 100 Chinese movies a year. More than 1,000 Western movies were shown in a year.

Some of the city’s past glory in the film industry is screened and displayed at the Shanghai Film Museum.

“It is known that Chinese movies were sold or toured in the West as early as the 1920s, and the discovery of ‘Cave of the Silken Web’ is a great new piece of evidence,” says Shi Chuan, a PhD holder in film studies and deputy chair of Shanghai Film Artists Association.

“Shanghai played an important role in the introduction and development of film industry in China,” he tells Shanghai Daily. Before 1910, most film production companies were foreign, but many Chinese companies started in the mid-1910s and quickly developed through the 1920s-1940s.

Records show that Shanghai was the first Chinese city where film was shown in 1896, only a few months after the Lumiere brothers held the first public screening in December 1895.

At that time they showed 10 short films including “Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory” and “The Gardener,” each less than a minute in length. Since early films were very short, Chinese businessmen bought them for entertainment and showed them with other programs and performances.

The Xu Garden, a private garden built by silk merchant Xu Hongkui in 1883, was advertised in a newspaper in 1896 as an entertainment venue where, for 30 cents, visitors could tour the garden and enjoy magic shows, fireworks, riddles competitions and “Western image drama,” the term for early short films.

“Early screenings involved many foreigners whose main purpose was to showcase and to sell the camera and screening equipment,” Shi explains.

Soon, screening was not enough. In 1909, the first film studio in Shanghai was opened by an American merchant, who hired Chinese employees. It was typical of early film studios in Shanghai: They were opened by foreigners and none survived very long. Soon, Chinese studios were opening and becoming the major force in the new industry.

Zhang Shichuan, who once worked for the American merchant, opened his own film company in 1916, which later became Ming Xing (Bright Star) Film Production Co, one of the biggest and most influential film studios in old Shanghai.

One of Zhang’s first productions was a 40-minute film called “Victims of Opium,” an adaptation of a successful stage drama about a wealth young man who becomes addicted to opium and loses his fortune. His son eats opium by accident and dies. His wife commits suicide after failing to convince her husband to end his life of addiction. His mother dies of disappointment. The man himself dies on the street.

Zhang had his eye on the story while he was working for the American company, but the US merchant hesitated to make such a negative film about the biggest foreign import. His movie drew a huge audience who fought over tickets. Because of these brawls, the film was banned by the concession administration office for disturbing public safety.

In the early days, some Chinese were wary of the new technology because some people still believed that having a photo taken would allow the camera to absorb the subject’s soul. Naturally a moving picture would do a lot more damage to more people.

It’s said that early filmmakers found it difficult to shoot footage on the street. They would spot a house and mark it with an “X,” but when they returned the next day to shoot, all the houses were marked with “X” because they didn’t want the filmmaker to recognize the house.

In the 1920s, martial arts and fantasy films were the mainstay.

“When the country was at its weakest and individual dignity was at risk every day, people wished that they could fly in the sky and kill enemies with a simple movement as in such movies,” Shi explains.

It was recorded that 60 percent of the 400 Chinese films produced by 50 companies between 1928 to 1931 were martial arts or fantasy movies.

Chinese filmmakers soon recognized the problem: poor-quality martial arts films that did not represent reality. They started making films that drew parallels with society that was undergoing dramatic changes in culture, values and lifestyle.

“Some of the most popular films followed the pattern of a young and well-educated man going to work, being shaken by various worldly temptations and struggling between his traditional values and modern society,” Shi says.

Most movies typically portrayed women as traditional, virtuous and long-suffering.

According to traditional Chinese values, acting was not respectable. Women were not allowed to perform in public.

“In early times, actresses were not well respected and they were not easy to find. Sometimes directors bought prostitutes from brothels to act in films,” Shi says.

But that was a time when modern values, ideas and technologies were flooding China and were quickly adopted.

“Within a few years, the situation was completely different. In the 1930s, many actors and actresses were very well educated. Some were even intellectuals and writers on the side,” Shi adds.

“Pink Lady Skeleton,” or “Ten Sisters,” screened in 1922 was the first Chinese detective movie, portraying a group of “pink lady skeletons” who trick young men for money. The phrase “pink lady skeletons” is a warning that even the most beautiful pink lady becomes a skeleton over time, so people must not fall for appearances.

While movie was being filmed, an actress drowned in the Huangpu River. The details are not known but writers have suggested that the director forced the pink lady skeleton actress, who could not swim, into the river for a swimming scene.

The social status of actors and actresses changed quickly, however, as the film industry developed rapidly and their incomes rocketed to more than 20 times that of an office clerk, already a high-paying job.

“In the 1930s, the idea of ‘new women’ became popular and this was reflected in the movies. Many showed ‘new women’ who rejected arranged marriage and accepted modern ideas,” Shi says.

In 1933, the film “Three Modern Ladies” was released. It featured Ruan Lingyu, a superstar famous for portraying traditional women. But in this film she played a patriotic factory worker who endured all kinds of difficulties and injustice and became a leader in the worker’s movement.

The year of 1933 is considered by historians to be the “Year of Chinese Film” because many quality films that year depicted modern and leftist ideas, reflecting dramatic changes in society.

Continuous conflicts and the Japanese invasion made Shanghai a risky place for business. Many studios were closed or moved overseas during this period. Cinemas were destroyed. Countless films were lost. That ended Shanghai’s history as a center of the Chinese film industry.

“Hopefully, the opening of Oriental DreamWorks and Shanghai Disney Resort will restore the city to an important position,” Shi says.

Shanghai Film Museum

Open: Tuesdays-Sundays, 9am-5pm (no entry after 4:30pm)

Address: 595 Caoxi Rd N.

Admission: 60 yuan (30 yuan for students; free for seniors over 70 years old and children younger than six or under 1.3 meters)

Tel: 6426-8666