The film of China underwent its hard and long pioneering period. In nearly thirty years (1905 ~ 1931) it suffered hard and bitter transformation from projecting foreign motion pictures to making its own films and from parasitizing on foreign resources to producing independently.

On August 11, 1896, motion pictures arrived in China from the West and the first recorded screening of a foreign film in China was held in Shanghai. Since then, the French, the English, Italians and Russians exported their films to China in succession.

As the first Chinese film, The Battle of Mount Dingjun which started to shoot on July 9th, 1905 was made by Ren Qintai in November 1905. It was adapted from a Beijing opera of the same title by a notable performer of Beijing Opera Tan Xinpei and shot at the Feng Tai Photo Studio in Beijing, The shooting of the film marked the official birth of Chinese film. The producer of the film, Ren Qingtai, had studieyoung. He himself bought a manual camera and 14 sets of films from a German merchant and hired Liu Zhonglun who worked in his photo studio as his cameraman. The film was produced outdoors in the daylight for three days without any transcript or background. Although it seemed that The Battle of Dingjunshan was rough and ordinary，it was of great significance then—it inaugurated the pioneering beginning to make films for Chinese people. It was the infrequent and rare material not only for the history of Chinese film, but also for the history of Chinese Beijing opera.In 1913, as the first film company set up Chinese people, Xinmin Film Company was founded. And the first Chinese short feature film The Couple in Hard Times ( or Die for Marriage OT the Difficult Couple) ( Dong Fang Hua Zhu) came out then.

In the following several years, the production companies were mainly owned by foreigners and the domestic film industry actually started in Shanghai since 1916. Film technicians from America began to train Chinese technicians in Shanghai in the 1920s, thus, American influence continued to be felt for the next two decades. This was the rudimentary times for the film of China. During this period some production companies were first set up in Shanghai, such as Star Film Company founded by Zheng Zhengqiu and Zhang Shichuan and the Shaw Brothers' Tianyi Film Company (“Unique”）. In 1917 China had its own first film corporation—the Film Section of the Commercial Press. Among these companies, Star Company produced Orphan Rescues Grandfather in 1923 and arounsed a stir then.

As a milestone of early Chinese film, Orphan Rescues Grandfather made by Zhang Shichuan and Zheng Zhengqiu with its successful box-office appealing to Chinese audiences of the time not only aid a foundation for the prosperity of Star Film Studio, it attracted more investment capital and talent into filmmaking, allowing a upsurge of founding film companies. According to the statistics, 175 film companies had been founded successively in every corner of the country, among which 145 were in Shanghai along. The emergence of numerous film companies led to the fact that the number of films increased and the domestic films were received a tremendous ovation on the market. Chinese film began to bottom out since then，entered its first unprecedentedly flourishing period.

In 1931 the first Chinese wax disc dubbing film, Singing Girl was produced.Although it did not bring the expected sensational effect in its public performance, the fearless experiment and struggling practice of the producers opened the new page of the history of Chinese film after all.

In 1932, Chinese Education Film Association was established in respond to the suggestion of enthusiastic people from Chinese educational and film field. Next year, Conscienceness by Bu Wancang and The Flower of Freedom, by Zheng Zhengqiu were selected as excellent films for the first time by the society. Hereafter, everal film selections were held. This was the earliest governmental film award for some leaders of the association acted as senior government officials.

At the beginning of 1930s, with the foundation of the progressive Chinese Leftist Writers' League, Japanese invasion of China and the Chinese people's awake-ness, the first truly important Chinese film was produced starting from the 1930s. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the progressive film workers made many good films bearing positive social effects at a quite high artistic level,like Cheng Bugao's Spring Silkworms (1933) , Wu Yonggang's The Goddess (1934), and Sun Yu's The Big Road (1935), etc. These progressive films were famous for their emphasis on social struggles and external threats (i.e.Japanese invasion),as well as on common people such as a family of silk farmers in Spring Silkworms and a prostitute in The Goddess. In 1933, the first Cantonese film, The White-golden Dragon aded by Xue Juexian and produced by Tianyi Film Company, aroused an unexpected stir. In 1934, Song of the fishermen produced by Cai Chusheng drew much attention of a large audience, and it became the firstChinese film awarded the international prize in the next year. In 193，the premiere of Children of TroubleTimes was held in Shanghai whose theme song, March of the Volunteer, was later confirmed to be the national anthem of the People's Republic of China.

In 1930s, Chinese film entered an unprecedented flourishing period and film style was gradually rich. In 1935, Diantong Film Company produced the first Chinese musical comedy City Scenery directed by Yuan Muzhi, whose artistic style was fresh and lively as well as bitter and harsh, occupying an important position in the film history. In 1937 the newly-established Xinhua Film Studio produced the first Chinese horror film The Phantom Lover directed by Maxu Weibang, starred Jin Shan and Hu Ping, etc. . The film not only made cinematic sensation then, its worth and charm could still be verified through half century.

After 1937, Chinese film workers produced many notable films which inspired Chinese people's fighting against Japanese invasion in the Anti-Japanese War, like Ding Shanxi's The Eight Hundred Heroes (1938) , Bu Wancang^S Mulan Joins the Army or Maiden in Armour (1939), with its story of a young Chinese peasant fighting against a foreign invasion, etc. In this stage Chinese film artists became more skillful in film language and their shooting methods reached the rather high level. In 1937, Street Angel produced by Yuan Muzhi made the main actress, Zhou Xuan, a great coup. Accordingly, this post-1930s is now often referred to as the first “golden period” of the Chinese film to some extent.