Colorized 1917 Footage Brings Lost China Back

In 1917, Americans curious about their new ally in the Far East had only a handful of moving images—and one standout feature-travelogue, A Trip Through China, survived in fragments. Now, surviving sections of Benjamin Brodsky’s film have been enhanced and colo

When he rolled into the work of showing China to the world, Benjamin Brodsky wasn’t filming for nostalgia. He was filming because “the real China” felt out of reach—especially to Americans just months into World War I. when China had joined their side and the distance between politics and understanding seemed. somehow. even wider than the map.

Even then. most Americans learned about China through scattered sources: post-Opium Wars missionary publications; newspaper coverage of complicated events like the Boxer Rebellion and the fall of the Qing dynasty; and silent-film genre stereotypes. Perhaps the rare reader got hold of John Thomson’s Through China with a Camera. For many, a lifetime could pass without a glimpse of “the real China.”.

By the end of 1917, that barrier was starting to shift. There were “at least 10 documentaries available to satisfy curiosity about America’s new ally in the Far East. ” according to the National Film Preservation Foundation. Most were shorts that played alongside features. But A Trip Through China was different.

It was a feature-length travelogue film made through years of work—at least five years in the making—and it had a maker with a résumé that sounded almost unreal even before the camera ever turned. Brodsky, the film’s brain-child, was a widely traveled Russian-born businessman who claimed to speak 11 languages. A 1912 Moving Picture World profile described how he moved to China from San Francisco after the 1906 Earthquake and set up shop as a film exhibitor. Soon. as the American representative of Variety Film Exchange. he had a hand in distribution. and by 1909 he branched into film production in Shanghai and Hong Kong. While juggling business interests. he filmed his travels—not just before China’s economic rise. but before even the Communist Revolution.

Brodsky brought 20,000 feet of negatives back to San Francisco. Eventually, the material was cut down to ten reels, which would have run around one hour and 50 minutes. Today, only certain sections of the feature-length travelogue survive. Still. those surviving sections are now enhanced and colorized with artificial intelligence in the video at the top of the post. with some of the un-enhanced black-and-white print appearing just above.

Here’s the twist that turns history into a living argument: the colors you see are not. of course. the colors Brodsky would have seen. There’s also discussion about whether the AI rendered certain complexions unrealistically dark for the regions in which he shot these scenes. In other words. the restored China might be closer to the footage—but it also might be closer to the machine’s interpretation of faces and light.

China, after all, is not one place. It’s diverse in regional landscapes, climates, and cultures—and in the faces of its people, something many Westerners wouldn’t have guessed in the nineteen-tens, and something a fair few of them don’t realize even today.

What makes A Trip Through China feel so urgent now isn’t only that the film exists in fragments. It’s that the surviving frames are being asked to do a job they were never designed for: to stand in as “real China” for an era that never met Brodsky’s camera in the first place. The footage becomes a window. yes—but also a mirror that shows how easily the past can be made to look complete.

1917 China footage A Trip Through China Benjamin Brodsky film restoration AI colorization silent film stereotypes World War I ally National Film Preservation Foundation Shanghai film production Hong Kong cinema Boxer Rebellion Qing dynasty fall