Parades in Shanghai

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.

Parades in Shanghai

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton
Shanghai
1938-01-01
Silent
15m

The brooding cityscape of 1930s Shanghai appears throughout this film as well as military parades and marches by British troops while Japanese soldiers look on.

A sense of foreboding permeates this 1937 film showing life in Shanghai's International Settlement. Military parades, many featuring Scottish regiments, are intercut with domestic scenes. However, Japanese military personnel can also be seen watching the proceedings. Otherwise, life for the expats continues as normal with outdoor meals, skittles and a ladies bowling match despite the fact that the Japanese Imperial Army surrounds their still neutral territory.

At the time this film was made, the Japanese Imperial Army were attacking and occupying areas of Shanghai that were not part of the still neutral International Settlement. By the end of 1937 their occupation of the Chinese districts of Shanghai was complete though it was not until the day after the attack on Pearl Harbour in late 1941, that the Japanese invaded the remaining parts of the city. Richard Martin, who made this film and was a member of the Shanghai Municipal Police, was interned in 1942 at Poodong Camp. However, his Japanese wife and children escaped internment because of their dual citizenship - their children's names appeared on her Japanese passport rather than on Mr Martin's British passport.

Shanghai - Pearl of the Orient

Western filmmakers captured the first moving images of one of the world's great cities. These remarkable films preserve a metropolis whose streets and waterways teem with life.

When cinema first came to China's shores, Shanghai was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. The new technology was exhibited at the city's Xu Gardens in August 1896 (just months after the Lumière Brothers' first demonstration in Paris), and the earliest ever filmed images of the city were captured - by Western filmmakers - soon after.

Some of the oldest surviving footage of Shanghai was shot by a British war correspondent, dispatched to China to cover the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. It captures the teeming multi-national traffic on the central Nanjing Lu thoroughfare, from gliding bicycles and rattling rickshaws, to a Sikh police detachment and German soldiers enjoying a cigarette. Shanghai's famous waterfront, the Bund, captivated numerous filmmakers in the 20s and 30s, and several films here show a remarkable thronging harbour life, with sampans clustering beneath the Bund's baroque temples of commerce and leisure.

Also featuring in this collection of newsreels, travelogues and home movies are scenes of the Japanese occupation of the city in 1937, and the death and destruction that followed. These are sombre, even harrowing scenes, but a crucial chapter in Shanghai's history.