His father died when Zhang was 16 years old, and he had to quit school and move to Shanghai to live with his maternal uncle Jing Runsan (经润三), a successful comprador.

However, Xinmin and Asia went out of business when their supply of German film stock was cut off after the outbreak of World War I.

[2] As a Western-influenced businessman, Zhang's main priority was profit, which differed from that of Zheng Zhengqiu, a playwright from an aristocratic family who emphasized cinema's role in social reform and moral enlightenment.

[1][2] When Zhang Shichuan's The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple (1928) became a phenomenal hit, he produced as many as 17 sequels in the next three years.

[3] In cooperation with Hong Shen, Zhang directed Sing-Song Girl Red Peony in 1931, the first Chinese sound film (though it was sound-on-disc, not sound-on-film).

[2] In the early 1930s, Japan's invasion of Manchuria and attack of Shanghai produced a sense of national crisis in China.

He hired a number of leftist writers, who wrote scripts for such films as The Tenderness Market (1933) and Lucky Money (1937).

[1] After the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, Zhang was accused of treason for having worked for the Japanese, but was not officially indicted.