A Visit to China

From the collection of

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton collects, preserves, catalogues and provides public access to its collection of films and magic lantern slides. The collection charts the rise of screen culture in the region and the nation and captures many aspects of life, work and creativity in the South East from the late 19th century to the present day. It is available for research, screenings, creative re-use and commercial access.

A Visit to China

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton
Forbidden City
1938-01-01
Silent
30m

This stunning colour film features the only known pre-war footage of Seoul as well as Beijing, the Great Wall, the Marco Polo Bridge and many other famous landmarks.

This astonishing colour film features many of China's cultural treasures including Beijing's Forbidden City and Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, the Ming Tombs, the Marco Polo Bridge, the Great Wall and the palaces of Chengde as well as amazing footage of Seoul. Life on the streets under Japanese occupation is also captured. Many activities are seen including markets, rickshaws, street children, a funeral and hundreds of camels and donkeys carrying heavy loads.

Tor H. Wistrand, who filmed these scenes, was a Swedish diplomat who was able to visit parts of China which had fallen under Japanese control. His visit to the Marco Polo Bridge was especially significant as it was the location for a notorious incident which occurred on the 7th July 1937 - an event that triggered the outbreak of total war between China and Japan. The capture of this bridge cut communications between Beijing and Kuomintang-held areas to the south and the city fell to the Japanese not long afterwards. The few visitors to the Forbidden City, as seen in this film, contrasts sharply with the current experience - where it's estimated that 7 million people visit the Imperial Palace complex each year.

China on Film

Travel back in time to a lost China with this collection of extraordinary, rare and beautiful travelogues, newsreels and home movies from the first half of the 20th century.

See bustling, cosmopolitan Shanghai in 1901. Wander the streets around the Qianmen, Beijing, in 1910. Cruise Hangzhou's picturesque canals in 1925. Visit China's great cities - Hong Kong, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Kashgar, Kunming, Suzhou, Tianjin - before concrete expressways and steel-and-glass towers transformed their skylines. And discover rural China almost untouched by modernity, as farmhands bend their backs in paddy fields. In an odyssey embracing the exotic and the everyday, these remarkable films - many of them never published before - will guide you through thousands of miles of Chinese landscape and 50 years of history.

This is a unique and exceptional visual history of China - captured by a wealth of different filmmakers, from professionals to intrepid tourists, colonial-era ex-pats and Christian missionaries. Western filmmakers were visiting China years before any Chinese native first used a film camera. Yes, this is a China seen through Western eyes, reflecting European attitudes and expectations. But even so, it's a rare and fascinating record of a country since changed almost beyond recognition.