Posts tagged with "cinema"



22. August 2023
Ca. 1940 hand fan with advertisement for the Shanghai U.B. Beer brewery and featuring comedy duo Han Langen (韩兰根) and Yin Xiucen (殷秀岑). From the MOFBA collection.
You’ve surely heard of Laurel & Hardy, the famous slapstick comedy duo of early American cinema. But did you know that China had its equivalent with Langen Han & Xiucen Yin? A 1940 hand fan advertisement for Shanghai U.B. Beer from our collection reminds us of their forgotten history.
16. August 2023
Magic Lantern glass slide advertisement by Solon Advertising Service (沙龙广告公司) for Parker pens (派克) in Shanghai, China ca. 1940s. From the MOFBA collection.
This 1940s advertising slide from our collection reminds us that pre-roll ads have existed for over 120 years, but also tells the incredible story of how a Western brand once helped normalize diplomatic relations with China. The first to present projected moving pictures to a paying audience were the Lumière brothers in December 1895 in Paris, France. They used a device of their own making, the Cinématographe, and the first ever created film titled “Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory”...
08. March 2022
Chinese Bayer advertisement referencing the iconic advertisement poster, from the MOFBA collection
The 1930s marked the first “Golden Period” of Chinese cinema and catapulted its key performers to superstardom. In 1933, the newspaper Star Daily conducted China's first public poll for the most popular movie stars with Hu Die “Butterfly” Wu (胡蝶) as the runaway winner with 21,334 votes, more than twice as many as the first runner-up Chen Yumei, and almost three times the votes her friend Ruan Lingyu (阮玲玉) received. Hu Die was crowned China's first "Movie Queen", but Ruan...