The North China Occupation and the “Yenching Pictures” Elegy: Textual Research into the Trials and Tribulations of the Yenching Motion Picture Company

The Yenching Motion Picture Company is a forgotten entity in the annals of Chinese cinematic history. This text hopes to verify the company’s establishment, its early productions, and its eventual bankruptcy by investigating historical records in an effort to reconstruct the events that led to its early success and ultimate failure through a re-examination of historical data that can unravel the mystery of what happened to “Yenching Pictures.” This text simultaneously shifts the focus to the North China region in an investigation centered around the capital city of Peiping, with en eye towards filling out the diverse and convoluted research annals of cinema in era of China’s occupation, and to provide the groundwork with which to probe deeper into the Peking Opera film craze as a local social and cultural phenomenon.

Keywords: Manchurian North China Film Co. Ltd. ; Peking Film Industry ; Peking Opera films ; Yenching Motion Picture Company