In a pot experiment, rice plants were shaded during the period from transplanting to booting, aimed to study the effects of early growth stage shading on the rice growth at grain-filling stage. Comparing with the control, early growth stage shading decreased the tiller number by 26.72%, but increased the flag leaf area and soluble sugar content by 33.86% and 30.23%, respectively. The filled-grain number per panicle, 1000-grain mass, ultimate brown rice mass, and maximum and average grain-filling rates decreased by 8.65%, 4.81%, 9.74%, 20.22%, and 19.13%, and the effective panicle number and grain yield declined by 25.26% and 39.56%, respectively. The peak time of grain-filling rate (Tm) advanced 1.66 days, while the grain-filling time (T99) prolonged 6.80 days. For shading-tolerance variety, its flag leaf Chl a, Chl b, and Chl (a + b) contents at early and mid grain-filling stages, and the protein N and soluble sugar contents and Chl a/b in its flag leaves at grain-filling stage all increased under early growth stage shading, and the ultimate brown rice mass and 1000-grain mass maintained at the similar levels as the control. Consequently, its grain yield reduction rate was lower than that of shading-sensitive variety.