“After seeing these shadow plays, I thereupon sighed with the feeling that every change in the world is just like a mirage. There is no difference between life and shadow play... suddenly hidden from the view, suddenly reappearing. Life is really like dreams and bubbles, and all lives can be seen this way.”

—A line from the earliest known Chinese movie review

In the spring of 1905, an ambitious Shanghainese photographer named Ren Qingtai hit upon a way to boost business at his portrait studio: He decided to turn a large, unused side room into a theater where his friends could put on opera performances. Ren counted some of Shanghai’s most popular actors and musicians among his acquaintances, and they readily agreed to put on impromptu concerts in his makeshift venue—the Fengtai Photography Shop performance hall and gallery. As enterprising as this was, it was Ren’s other idea for the space that truly turned heads. On nights when his friends weren’t available, he wanted to use it to showcase the fancy new technology known as dian ying xi, “electric shadow plays”—or, as they were known in the West, “movies.”

Within just months, the motion picture side of the Fengtai Photography Shop gallery quietly but surely squeezed out the live performance side. People who rarely went to operas were turning out for movies in droves, and it dawned upon Ren that his offbeat idea just might make him more money than he’d ever seen in his life. Unfortunately, the demand for motion pictures was beginning to outstrip the available supply of foreign imports, and Ren was reluctant to disappoint crowds with reruns. Like many a practical innovator, he resolved to take matters into his own hands. Through his stage acquaintances, he recruited Tan Xinpei, then known as the “King of Beijing Opera,” to perform one of his most celebrated roles, the warrior-king in Dangjun Mountain, at the gallery. Then he borrowed a movie camera and invested in a reel of celluloid filmstock. The result, a crude piece of work shot in one take with a fixed camera, nevertheless captured a thrilling performance by one of the era’s biggest stars. And thus the Chinese cinematic industry was born—an industry that, a century later, has diverged down multiple paths, and produced some of the world’s most startlingly original works, and greatest artists and performers.