The cinema of China is the filmmaking and film industry of the Chinese mainland under the People's Republic of China, one of three distinct historical threads of Chinese-language cinema together with the cinema of Hong Kong and the cinema of Taiwan.
1926 Tianyi film Lady Meng Jiang, starring Hu Die
20-year-old Ruan Lingyu, a superstar during the silent film era, in Love and Duty (1931)
Jin Yan, a Korean-born Chinese actor featured in The Big Road (1935), who gained fame during China's golden age of cinema
Zhou Xuan, an iconic Chinese singer and film actress
The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production companies, film studios, cinematography, animation, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post-production, film festivals, distribution, and actors. Though the expense involved in making films almost immediately led film production to concentrate under the auspices of standing production companies, advances in affordable filmmaking equipment, as well as an expansion of opportunities to acquire investment capital from outside the film industry itself, have allowed independent film production to evolve.
The Hollywood Sign
Nestor studio, 1911
Old Chinese Cinema in Qufu, Shandong
A scene from Raja Harishchandra (1913) – credited as the first full-length Indian motion picture.