entertain the Empress Dowager Cixi during her birthday celebrations. Master Ren and his apprentices take a photograph of the Empress Dowager, while Lord Tan performs his opera number. Liu and Raymond project some Western film shorts to the amusement of the Empress Dowager and her coterie. However, hand-cranking causes the projector to catch fire, the screening is ruined midway, and Liu is badly burnt. The Qing officials are incensed that Liu and Raymond nearly cause deaths during the birthday celebration of the esteemed Dowager, but the Dowager pardons Liu for his naivety. Raymond, however, is immediately banished from China. Half a year passes, and Liu recovers from his burns. Raymond, fondly remembering their friendship and times in China, sends him the nitrate negatives of movies they shot together in Beijing, imploring that he should not let the work they started together die. Liu decides to try making a film projector himself and successfully screens these local movies to a group of Beijing natives. Liu's father decides to support him in this venture and Ling visits him on the sly at the projection room, where they kiss. The film ends with the Beijing natives gradually accepting the motion picture technology, once they see how beautifully it captures the majesty of the Chinese landscape. At the film's end, captions reveal that Liu and Master Ren become the first Chinese to shoot a motion picture. The film, starring Lord Tan, is the now famous Dingjun Mountain. Cast Xia Yu as Liu Jinglun (based on Liu Zhonglun, the cinematographer of Dingjun Mountain) Jared Harris as Raymond Wallace Xing Yufei as Tan Xiaoling, Tan Linmei's daughter Liu Peiqi as Master Ren (based on Ren Jingfeng, the director of Dingjun Mountain) Li Yusheng as Tan Linmei (based on Tan Xinpei, the star of Dingjun Mountain) Lü Liping as Mr. Ren's wife Fang Qingzhuo as Widow Jiang Li Bin as Empress Dowager Cixi References External links Chinese historical drama films 2000 films 2000s Mandarin-language films Films set in Beijing Films set in 1902 Films set in 20th-century Qing dynasty Films about filmmaking Sony Pictures Classics films 2000s Chinese films