Zheng Zhengqiu (; January 25, 1889 – July 16, 1935) was a Chinese filmmaker often considered a "founding father" of

Chinese cinema The cinema of China is one of three distinct historical threads of Chinese languages, Chinese-language cinema together with the cinema of Hong Kong and the cinema of Taiwan. Cinema was introduced in China in 1896 in China, 1896 and the first C ...

.Zhang, Yingjin & Xiao, Zhiwei (1998). "Zheng Zhengqiu" in ''Encyclopedia of Chinese Film''. Taylor & Francis, pp. 393-94. .

Biography

Born in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

in 1889, Zheng Zhengqiu was a young intellectual involved in China's

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

scene when he and his friend and colleague,

Zhang Shichuan Zhang Shichuan (; 1889–1953 or 1890–1954), also credited as S. C. Chang, was a Chinese entrepreneur, film director, and film producer, who is considered a founding father of Chinese cinema. He and Zheng Zhengqiu made the first Chinese featur ...

, made the first Chinese feature film, a short film titled, ''

The Difficult Couple ''The Difficult Couple'' (), also translated as ''Die for Marriage'', is a 1913 Chinese film. It is known for being the earliest Chinese feature film. Although it had a dialogue of only a little more than 1,000 characters, it was the first Chines ...

'' in 1913. The two men would come together again in 1922 with the founding of the seminal Mingxing Film Company and the oldest surviving classic

Laborer's Love ''Laborer's Love'' () is a classic silent comedy short film produced in China during the Republican Era, which officially premiered on October 5, 1922 at the Olympic Theater in Shanghai. It is also known as ''Romance of a Fruit Peddler'' or ''R ...

, which would dominate Shanghai's film industry for the next fifteen years. While with Mingxing, Zheng served not only as screenwriter and director, but as a studio manager and producer, personally writing and directing 53 films before his early death in 1935. Like many of his colleagues during the period, Zheng was devoted to leftist causes and social justice, themes that were evident in many of his works.Pang Laikwan (2002).
Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932-1937
'. Lanham, p. 48. . After his partner, Zhang Shichuan, rescued Xuan Jinglin from a brothel, Zheng Zhengqiu devised her stage name. He based it on the name she had adopted in the brothel and a transliteration of

Lillian Gish Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893February 27, 1993) was an American actress, director, and screenwriter. Her film-acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was called the "First Lady of American Cinema", ...

into Chinese said in a Shanghai accent.

Partial directorial filmography

References

External links

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Zheng Zhengqiu
at the Chinese Movie Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Zheng, Zhengqiu Film directors from Shanghai Screenwriters from Shanghai 1889 births 1935 deaths Cinema pioneers Chinese silent film directors 20th-century screenwriters