This DVD is a compilation of various rare and preserved films and footage collections revolving around Chinese people and culture, including Chinese-Americans. You cant find this special DVD anywhere else, as we compiled it ourselves. With a selection from 1912, 1925, 1940 and 1964, you also get to see a sense of cultural change from one film to the next.
Included Films:
Red Chinese Battle Plan
Red Chinese Battle Plan
Produced: 1964
Length: 25 Minutes
Red Chinese Battle Plan is an anti-communist China propaganda film that contains powerful footage from China, Vietnam, Cuba, and more during the years 1921-64. It charts the rise of Mao and the Peoples Republic government, painting China, the Yellow Peril, as more of a threat to the U.S. than even the U.S.S.R. Scenes from China include the young Mao speaking to and leading communist revolutionaries, battles between the Nationalist army and communist guerrilla fighters, posters of Mao and Chiang Kai-shek, a show with dancers and balloons in Peking, Japanese planes bombing Shanghai, Chinese farm workers, starving Chinese peasants, and Chinese leaders signing deals with various world leaders such as Nikita Khrushchev. Though the film possesses an undeniably bombastic and jingoistic tone, it contains valuable documentation of this important time in the history of China.
Parade Celebrating Chinese Republic
Parade Celebrating Chinese Republic
Produced: 1912
Length: 3 Minutes
This is a short collection of footage from 1912 San Francisco, where people were celebrating the formation of the new Chinese Republic.
People of Western China
People of Western China
Produced: 1940
Length: 11 Minutes
Back from the waters of the yellow sea, far inland from the eastern plains, lies a valley of western China. Chengtu is the village that lies within this valley surrounded by lofty mountains. The people have lived in this peaceful village for uncounted centuries toiling the land which is rich in farming and history. People, who in time of peace have pursued their placid ways close to the earth, people who have remained always though dynasties rose and fell, people with an anchorage in the land they till. Produced by the Encyclopedia Britannica, this educational film introduces the many ways in which the people of western China have adapted to their environment and created many tools for that adaptation such as baskets and chopsticks out of the supremely important national resource, bamboo. Ingenious with their creations for work and home, modern technology of the time – 1940 – is helping to improve their quality of life and farming. An interesting, and amazingly unbiased, film about the Chinese culture of the 1940s, The People of Western China is well worth the visit back in time if only to witness a group of people rooted in the earth since time immortal.
Chinese Lion Dance: Marysville, California
Chinese Lion Dance: Marysville, California
Produced: 1925
Length: 10 Minutes
This silent short shows amazing footage from the Chinese New Year Bok Kai festival in Marysville California. A tradition that has lasted throughout countless generations, we see many important ceremonies celebrating the New Year including the Lion Dance and the firing of the rings. Not only are we privy to some of the intriguing customs associated with Bok Kai festival, but we are given a glimpse at the immigration population of Chinese in the United States at the turn of the century. Shot by an amateur film maker in 1925, this black and white film is full of informational and interesting insights into a culture that has long been a source of inspiration and technological advances.
