Laogong zhi aiqing (Laborer's Love)
Zhang Shichuan, CN 1922; Screenplay: Zheng Zhengqiu; Cinematography: Zhang Weitao; Cast: Zheng Zhegu, Zheng Zhengqiu, Yu Ying. DCP (from 35mm), bw, 24 min. Mandarin intertitles with English subtitlesPan si dong (The Cave of the Silken Web)
Dan Duyu, CN 1927; Screenplay: Guan Ji'an after the novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en; Cinematography: Dan Ganting; Editing: Guan Ji'an; Cast: Jiang Meikang, Yin Mingzhu, Wu Wenchao, Zhou Hongquan. DCP (from 35mm), bw, 68 min. Mandarin intertitles with English subtitlesLaborer's Love is a landmark of Chinese cinema: the earliest extant complete Chinese film. Conceived by one of the "fathers of Chinese cinema," social reformer and moralist Zheng Zhengqiu, and directed by entertainment film entrepreneur Zhang Shichuan, this 1922 short film pioneers three genres: romance, comedy, and slapstick action. Carpenter-fruit seller Zheng is smitten by the daughter of Dr. Zhu, from a market stall across the lane. Zhu insists that Zheng make his business prosper before he approves of the match. Zheng then constructs an ingenious trick staircase that sends a stream of injured nightclub rowdies to Dr. Zhu. Instant profits. Adeptly deploying spectacular stunts, matches on action, parallel narrative, POV shots, fast motion, and inserts into a flat stage-based mise-en-scène the film elegantly marries US film-inspired genre and technique with Chinese acrobatic theater into a condensed, eclectic classic of populist and entertaining (and slightly raunchy) "cinema of attractions."
Rediscovered in a Norwegian film archive in 2011, the spectacularly strange silent fantasy-action feature The Cave of the Silken Web (aka Spiders) was long believed lost. Most of the original has been recovered and restored. The earliest of many fantasy films based on the Ming dynasty novel Journey to the West, the film illustrates one episode of monk Tang Xuanzang's adventures, with companions Sun Wukong (aka Monkey King), Pigsy, and Sandy, on his quest to retrieve Buddhist scripture from India. Captured by spider demons disguised as seductive enchantresses and kept in a cave to be wed against his will, Xuanzang is rescued by the acrobatic Monkey after a series of innovative action sequences involving magical illusions, body transformations, and raging flames. A prancing Fire Slave, lust-crazed semi-disrobed spider-maidens, and a convention of outlandishly decorated monsters tempt our very chaste monk with all manner of seductive passions, providing early Chinese film audiences with non-stop magical spectacle. (S.K.)
Piano accompaniment by Elaine Brennan