Daguanlou was originally the Masiyuan Teahouse, which was built in 1900. People, especially men, would go to the Masiyuan to sip tea and watch some Beijing Opera, which originated in the 1700s. Eight years after the invention of the movie in Paris in 1895, the Masiyuan's owner Ren Jingfeng decided to show short movies on a piece of white cloth suspended on stage between acts. This began the age of the silver screen in China.

 The first-ever Chinese movie

Ren Jingfeng	Ding Junshan (Conquering Mount Jun)

Movies remained an exclusively foreign art form until 1905 when Ren produced Ding Junshan (Conquering Mount Jun) the first-ever Chinese movie. He bought a movie camera in a German store in Beijing, and asked Tan Xinpei, the then famous Beijing Opera actor, to star in it. The ten-minute-long movie was filmed in front of Ren's studio and shown in Daguanlou Cinema. It was a hit. It's said that the rest of Beijing seemed empty, because everyone was at Daguanlou. Movie fever had caught on.

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