We’ve no way of knowing for certain whether or not Ren Qingtai had an inkling of the legacy he’d leave behind when he first ordered a French-made, wooden-bodied, hand-cranked camera to roll, back in the fall of 1905.
But chances are he did. History reveals Ren was a very smart man, and a multi-hyphenate, a good century before that phrase even emerged. Importantly, he was also the man who directed China’s first-ever film, Dingjun Mountain.
“The production of this film…