A 5,200-year-old earthen bowl found in Shahr-i Sokhta, Iran, has five images of a goat painted along the sides. This is believed to be an example of early animation.[2][3][4]
Mo-Ti, a Chinese philosophercirca 500 BC, pondered the phenomenon of inverted light from the outside world beaming through a small hole in the opposite wall in a darkened room. Shadow plays first appeared during the Han dynasty and later gain popularity across Asia. Around 180 AD, Ting Huan (丁緩) created an elementary zoetrope in China.
Silent film era (1890s–1920s)
The first short films from Asia were produced during the 1890s. The first short films produced in Japan were Bake Jizo (Jizo the Spook) and Shinin no Sosei (Resurrection of a Corpse), both from 1898.[5] The first Indian short film was also produced in 1898, The Flower of Persia, directed by Hiralal Sen.[6]
In the early 1900s, Israeli silent movies were screened in sheds, cafes and other temporary structures.[7] In 1905, Cafe Lorenz opened on Jaffa Road in the Jewish neighborhood of Neve Tzedek. From 1909, the Lorenz family began screening movies at the cafe. In 1925, the Kessem Cinema was housed there for a short time.[8] The first East Asian feature film was Japan's The Life Story of Tasuke Shiobara (1912). It was followed by India's first feature-length silent film, the period piece drama Raja Harishchandra (1913), by Dadasaheb Phalke, considered the father of Indian cinema. By the next decade, the output of Indian cinema was an average of 27 films per year.[9]
In the 1920s, the newborn Soviet cinema was the most radically innovative. There, the craft of editing, especially, surged forward, going beyond its previous role in advancing a story. Sergei Eisenstein perfected the technique of so-called dialectical or intellectual montage, which strove to make non-linear, often violently clashing, images express ideas and provoke emotional and intellectual reactions in the viewer.
Early sound era (1930s)
Sound films began being produced in Asia from the 1930s. Notable early talkies from the cinema of Japan included Kenji Mizoguchi's Sisters of the Gion (Gion no shimai, 1936), Osaka Elegy (1936) and The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939), along with Sadao Yamanaka's Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937) and Mikio Naruse's Wife, Be Like A Rose! (Tsuma Yo Bara No Yoni, 1935), which was one of the first Japanese films to gain a theatrical release in the U.S. However, with increasing censorship, the left-leaning tendency films of directors such as Daisuke Ito also began to come under attack. A few Japanese sound shorts were made in the 1920s and 1930s, but Japan's first feature-length talkie was Fujiwara Yoshie no furusato (1930), which used the 'Mina Talkie System'. In 1935, Yasujirō Ozu also directed An Inn in Tokyo, considered a precursor to the neorealism genre.
Ardeshir Irani released Alam Ara, the first Indian talking film, on March 14, 1931. Following the inception of 'talkies' in India some film stars were highly sought after and earned comfortable incomes through acting. As sound technology advanced the 1930s saw the rise of music in Indian cinema with musicals such as Indra Sabha and Devi Devyani marking the beginning of song-and-dance in India's films.[10] Studios emerged across major cities such as Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai as filmmaking became an established craft by 1935, exemplified by the success of Devdas, which had managed to enthrall audiences nationwide.[11]
Golden Age (1940s–1960s)
Akira Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray, two of the most acclaimed filmmakers from the Golden Age of Asian cinema.
The cinema of China experienced a 'Golden Age' in the late 1940s. In 1946, Cai Chusheng returned to Shanghai to revive the Lianhua name as the "Lianhua Film Society."[32] This in turn became Kunlun Studios which would go on to become one of the most important Chinese studios of the era, putting out the classics, Myriads of Lights (1948), The Spring River Flows East (1947), and Crows and Sparrows (1949).[33] Wenhua's romantic drama Spring in a Small Town (1948), a film by director Fei Mu shortly prior to the revolution, is often regarded by Chinese film critics as one of the most important films in the history of Chinese cinema, with it being named by the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2004 as the greatest Chinese-language film ever made.[34]
The cinema of Malaysia also had its 'Golden Age' in the post-war period of the 1950s and 1960s. The period saw the introduction of the studio system of filmmaking in Malaysia and influx of influences from Hollywood, the emerging cinema of Hong Kong, and particularly the Indian and Japanese film industries which were themselves experiencing a Golden Age.[35][36]
The late 1950s and 1960s was also a 'Golden Age' for Philippine cinema, with the emergence of more artistic and mature films, and significant improvement in cinematic techniques among filmmakers. The studio system produced frenetic activity in the local film industry as many films were made annually and several local talents started to earn recognition abroad. The premiere Philippine directors of the era included Gerardo de Leon, Gregorio Fernandez, Eddie Romero, Lamberto Avellana, and Cirio Santiago.[37][38]
The cinema of South Korea also experienced a 'Golden Age' in the late 1950s and 1960s,[39] beginning with director Lee Kyu-hwan's tremendously successful remake of Chunhyang-jon (1955).[40] That year also saw the release of Yangsan Province by the renowned director, Kim Ki-young, marking the beginning of his productive career. Both the quality and quantity of filmmaking had increased rapidly by the end of the 1950s. South Korean films, such as Lee Byeong-il's 1956 comedy Sijibganeun nal (The Wedding Day), had begun winning international awards. In contrast to the beginning of the 1950s, when only 5 movies were made per year, 111 films were produced in South Korea in 1959.[41] The year 1960 saw the production of Kim Ki-young's The Housemaid and Yu Hyun-mok's Aimless Bullet, both of which have been listed among the best Korean films ever made.[42]
The 1960s is often cited as being the 'golden age' of Pakistani cinema. Many A-stars were introduced in this period in time and became legends on the silver screen. As black-and-white became obsolete, Pakistan saw the introduction of its first colour films, the first being Munshi Dil's Azra in 1962, Zahir Rehan's Sangam (first full-length coloured film) in 1964, and Mala (first coloured cinemascope film). In 1961, the political film Bombay Wala was released, based on the city of Bombay in neighbouring India, in the wake of the growing tension between the nations.[43] In 1962, Shaheed (Martyr) pronounced the Palestine issue on the silver screen and became an instant hit, leading to a changing tide in the attitude of filmmakers.[citation needed]
The 1960s was the "golden age" of Cambodian cinema. Several production companies were started and more movie theaters were built throughout the country. More than 300 movies were made in Cambodia during the era.[44] A number of Khmer language films were well received in neighbouring countries at the time.[45] Among the classic films from Cambodia during this period were Lea Haey Duong Dara (Goodbye Duong Dara) and Pos Keng Kang (The Snake King's Wife) by Tea Lim Kun and Sabbseth, and An Euil Srey An (Khmer After Angkor) by Ly Bun Yim.
In 1966, 2.6 million Israelis went to the cinema over 50 million times. From 1968, when television broadcasting began, theaters began to close down, first in the periphery, then in major cities. 330 standalone theaters were torn down or redesigned as multiplex theaters.[7]
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Japanese cinema had begun to become seriously affected by the collapse of the studio system. As Japanese cinema slipped into a period of relative low visibility, the cinema of Hong Kong entered a dramatic renaissance of its own, largely a side effect of the development of the wuxia blending of action, history, and spiritual concerns. Several major figures emerged in Hong Kong at this time, including King Hu, whose 1966 Come Drink With Me was a key influence upon many subsequent Hong Kong cinematic developments. Shortly thereafter, the American-born Bruce Lee became a global icon in the 1970s.
The 1970s also saw the establishment of Bangladeshi cinema following the country's independence in 1971. One of the first films produced in Bangladesh after independence was Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Called Titas) in 1973 by acclaimed director Ritwik Ghatak, whose stature in Bengali cinema is comparable to that of Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen. Another great film of Bangladesh is Mita's 'Lathial' (The striker), were the best movies of the year of 1975. 'Lathial' got first National Award as the best film, and mita got first National Award as best director.
During the 1980s, Japanese cinema – aided by the rise of independent filmmaking and the spectacular success of anime – began to make something of an international comeback. Simultaneously, a new post-Mao Zedong generation of Chinese filmmakers began to gain global attention. Another group of filmmakers, centered around Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien, launched what has become known as the "Taiwanese New Wave".[citation needed]