before.
The Chinese film industry developed along ideological lines early, though it would be overstating the facts to find that the Communist groups in filmmaking prior to the takeover in 1949 were that influential:
The Communist Party and progressive filmmakers did not dominate the film industry; nor did those artists who were later called 'progressive' or 'leftist' necessarily subscribe to Communist ideology or the Party leadership (Clark 10).
However, the Communists in China in the 1930s recognized the propaganda value of film and established an organization to guide progressive filmmakers in Shanghai. This was the Film Group, an important subdivision of the League of Left-Wing Writers during the period before the War of Resistance to Japan (1937-1945). The filmmakers who belonged to this group existed in an environment hostile to Communism, and yet after 1949 they would find themselves in control of that same system. Another change they experienced related to their audience. During the earlier period, the filmma
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