Tang Xiaodan Director War Films Study

Tang Xiaodan(1910--) is an important director in twentieth century Chinese film and a key representative of the film artists of Shanghai. In his half-century-long career as a director, he went through all the changes that took place during China's transit from the old into the new. Since 1949 the themes of his films focused on major wars and historical events and he successfully transformed himself into a film artist within the socialist system. His war films which marked his merging into the mainstream film making of the socialist state were a great breakthrough in the nation's film productions of major events and his films became an important phenomenon in Shanghai's film making in such transitory period.The earlier films of Tang were primarily Cantonese films of the 1930s and sharply ironical and realistic films of the 1940s. His films of a later time were mainly about the wars that took place in the thirty years before the founding of New China in 1949. All of his films expressed a deep concern about the society and the people of the bottom and he became an important representative of war films by his productions of that theme. In the second half of his life Tang further developed the film making traditions of Shanghai and became one of the pioneers of China's war films. His rich and colourful productions contributed greatly to the history of Chinese film and will deeply influence the film making that came after him.Based on historical and social analysis and with a focus on authorial and comprehensive understanding of Tang Xiaodan's films, this paper will explore, on the one hand, the contributions of Tang and his films by putting them in the historical process of the 1950s—1980s and on the other the artistic qualities of his works by analysing his individualities as an author so that we may have a better understanding of him and the contributions of his films to the history of Chinese film.