CHINESE MOVIE MAGAZINES (1921 TO 1951)

If you're a fan of oriental culture then I'm sure you'd get a right kick out of the following 288-page hardback published by Thames & Hudson. Priced at £35, this book is basically a visual guide that presents us with 590 different pictures showcasing the golden age of Asian cinema. This started in 1921 and ended in 1951, where famous people like Butterfly Wu, Charlie Chaplin, Chairman Mao, Laurence Olivier, and Hu Rongrong, among others, got their time in the spotlight.


Chinese Movie Magazines, 1921-1951: From Charlie Chaplin to Chairman Mao (Hardcover)


In general terms, this lavish ledger has a fairly unique insight into the history of Chinese popular culture, media, and social life, which encompasses such topics as glamour, stardom, music, politics, style, technology, and of course, Chinese and Hollywood cinema. Here, have a look at the following images for a brief glimpse of what's in store.

The Motion Picture Review #3
1st Chaplin Cover (1922)

Movie Weekly #13

Butterfly Wu (1931)

Star Semi-Monthly #3

Gao Zhan Wei & Gao Jianping (1935)

Movietone #5 (Volume 6)
Shirley Temple (1937)

Silver Screen #2

Laurence Olivier & Merle Oberon (1939)

Yihua #2

Newlywed Murder Case (1936)

The Movie World #4
Dianying Shijie (1939)

Teatro Vitoria Seasonal Presentation

Fred Astaire & Eleanor Powell (1940)

Screen Voice #156

Movie Circle (1950)

New Cinema #1

Chairman Mao (1951)

You also might like to know that this book was compiled and written by Paul Kendel Fonoroff, who once owned the largest collection of Eastern movie memorabilia outside of China. Over the years he's helped promote the oriental culture in a number of different ways. This includes being a film critic in China, writing for the Morning Post for twenty-five years, hosting over a thousand movie-related TV shows, plus he's even had roles in twenty movies.

Currently, he's living in Hong Kong and is a member of the Hong Kong Film Critics Society, the Performing Artists Guild of Hong Kong, as well as being an advisor to the Hong Kong Film Archives. His vast collection of Chinese movie memorabilia was acquired in 2015 by the University of California, Berkeley, and is housed in the C.V. Starr East Asian Library.

(c) Paul Kendel Fonoroff Collection for Chinese Film Studies, 
C. V. Starr East Asian Library, University of California, Berkeley)

To find out more about the Chinese Movie Magazines, please check out the Thames & Hudson website, facebook, twitter, and instagram pages. Or better yet, why don't you pick up a copy on Amazon (available on the 13th of September, 2018). Trust me, you'd be happy if you did.