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At Home in Shanghai and a Trip to Hong Kong

From the collection of

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton
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.

At Home in Shanghai and a Trip to Hong Kong

Chinese junks and British battleships appear together in this film depicting the 1928 Armistice Day in Hong Kong.

This remarkable film shows the filmmakers, William and Charlotte Simpson, posing in their Shanghai garden before they are seen playing shuffleboard aboard the S.S. President McKinley en-route to Hong Kong. Chinese junks can be seen jostling alongside British battleships and liners. The film then shows the wreath laying ceremony at Hong Kong's Cenotaph on Armistice Day. The final scenes show the Simpsons at home and William is seen wearing his Remembrance Day poppy.

The carrier seen in this film is quite possibly HMS Hermes, the world's first purpose-built aircraft carrier, though not the first to be commissioned. Until 1938 she spent many years on patrol in Chinese waters before becoming a training ship in the Home Fleet. Recommissioned into the Eastern Fleet she was eventually sunk by Japanese dive-bombers near Sri Lanka in April 1942.

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From the collection

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.

32 videos in this collection

An extraordinary window on to the cosmopolitan heart of Shanghai - Nanjing Road - over a hundred years ago.
1

Nankin Road, Shanghai

  • Nanjing Lu (Nanking Road)
  • 1900-08
Scenes of panic on the streets of Shanghai as Chinese citizens seek protection from Communist and Kuomintang violence behind Allied barricades.
2

A City of Chaos Topical Budget 815-1

  • Shanghai
  • 1927-04-07
Four exquisite panoramic views of the Bund in Shanghai show life on the Huangpu River.
3

Riverside Scenes China

  • Bund
  • 1922
Work and play definitely mix in this short film featuring the staff of the Bradford Dyers Association's Shanghai office.
4

The Bradford Dyers Association's Offices in Shanghai and Messing About in the Courtyard

  • Shanghai
  • 1929-01-01
The famous waterfront of 1930s Shanghai is the star of this tantalising film which captures the bustling street life of China's most cosmopolitain city.
5

A Chinese Boat Trip with an Onboard Performance and Views of Shanghai

  • Shanghai
  • 1934-01-01
A beautifully photographed trip back to the Shanghai of the 1930s, with views of the Bund's busy harbourside.
6

Guangzhou: Water Transport

  • Guangzhou
  • 1933
Travel in luxury on the 'slow boat to China' in this remarkable film from 1938, passing through the Suez Canal to Hong Kong, Shanghai and beyond.
7

Outward Bound through the Suez Canal and on to Shanghai

  • Shanghai
  • 1938-10-01
Join the hustle and bustle of Peking and Shanghai city life with this richly detailed 1930s home movie.
8

Street Scenes - Peking and Shanghai

  • Beijing
  • 1933
Take a cruise through imperial China on the world's longest man-made waterway, the Grand Canal.
9

In China - A Trip on the Imperial Canal

  • Shanghai
  • 1908
Gruesome home movie scenes of metropolitan Shanghai brought to its knees in the first major battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
10

Shanghai China - Personal Film 1 - C. 1937

  • Shanghai
  • 1937
Take a serene tour of the canals, bridges and pagodas of Suzhou in Eastern China.
11

Chinese Scene

  • Suzhou
  • 1920
Chinese junks and British battleships appear together in this film depicting the 1928 Armistice Day in Hong Kong.
12

At Home in Shanghai and a Trip to Hong Kong

  • Shanghai
  • 1928-01-01
Ordinary life in extraordinary times - these ex-pats' home-movie snapshots of Shanghai capture the city on the brink of Japanese invasion.
13

Shanghai China - Personal Film 2 - C. 1937

  • Shanghai
  • 1937
Fascinating, sometimes harrowing record of life in camps run by international aid agencies following the bombing of Shanghai by the Japanese.
14

Refugees in Shanghai Their Life and Their Education

  • Shanghai
  • 1945
Battalions of the Royal Marines and the Coldstream Guards parade through Shanghai as the Chinese Civil War looms.
15

Marines Arrive in Shanghai Topical Budget 815-2

  • Shanghai
  • 1927-04-11
A Dragon Festival tops the bill in this atmospheric look at life in the streets, parks and harbourside of 1930s Shanghai.
16

Street scenes in Shanghai

  • Shanghai
  • 1933-01-01
A sumptuous city wedding, captured on film by a retired British teacher and amateur filmmaker, during a trip to China.
17

Wedding Procession - China C1932/33

  • 1932
Mesmerising snapshot of a China full of extreme contrasts: Nationalists versus Communists, urban versus rural, advanced versus primitive.
18

This Is China

  • 1946
Allied forces vigorously parade their strength in China's commercial capital in a bid to protect European interests.
19

Allied Reinforcements Topical Budget 810-1

  • Shanghai
  • 1927-03-03
British troops make their presence felt in Shanghai as China slides towards civil war.
20

Our Boys Topical Budget 812-2

  • Shanghai
  • 1927-03-21
Tantalising stock-shot glimpses of mid-century Shanghai, probably snipped from a documentary – but which?
21

Scenes in Chinese City

  • 1930
An epic amateur travelogue of eastern China on the cusp of Japanese invasion, filmed by British writer Lady Dorothea Hosie.
22

China Today

  • Guangzhou
  • 1936
While the bombs fall on Shanghai its foreign expats continue to play, as this unique film shows. But it's only the lull before the storm - because the Japanese are on their way.
23

Parades and air-raids in Shanghai

  • Shanghai
  • 1937-01-01
A Dragon procession, a Japanese beer festival, two duck shoots and a day at the races all feature in this remarkable film from 1930s Shanghai.
24

Life in Shanghai

  • Shanghai
  • 1933-01-01
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.
25

Parades in Shanghai

  • Shanghai
  • 1938-01-01
Period fashions and cloche hats abound in this film showing a newly married expat couple and their guests in one of Shanghai's more leafy suburbs.
26

A Wedding in Shanghai Cathedral

  • Shanghai
  • 1928-01-01
The bustling waterways of rural Fouzhou contrast sharply with the frenetic pace of life in Shanghai, as seen in this atmospheric film from the late 1920s.
27

A Visit to Fuzhou with the Bradford Dyers Association and Shanghai Views

  • Shanghai
  • 1929-01-01
Cloche-hatted wedding guests, armed with confetti, lie in wait for the newly weds as they exit from a Shanghai church while their limousine gets the treatment.
28

A Colonial Wedding

  • Shanghai
  • 1930-01-01
The remarkable Baochu pagoda dominates this film about a visit to the West Lake at Hangzhou.
29

Hangzhou and a Trip to the Baochu Pagoda

  • Hangzhou
  • 1930-01-01
This unique and beautiful tour of Southeast Asia and China is a treasure trove of picturesque views of Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing.
30

My Oriental Friends, From Penang to Peking

  • Hong Kong
  • 1923
31

Shanghai - Eng Personal Film - C.1932

  • Shanghai
  • 1932
All the fun of the fair: lovely, lively record of 'Shanghai's Coney Island'.
32

High Jinks

  • Shanghai
  • 1929-12-05
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