Tian Han 田汉 (1898-1968) was one of the leading Chinese intellectuals of the first half of the last 
century: dramatist, opera scenarist, stage and screen scriptwriter, author of fiction, poet, lyricist, literary and art critic, social activist … Tian Han did it all. Unlike the parade of young filmmakers at that time from bourgeois or upper-class backgrounds, Tian Han was born in 1898 to a poor peasant family in a village near Changsha, Hunan. Again unlike so many of his contemporaries, Tian did not return to China after extensive post-graduate study and travel in Europe or the U.S., although he did have three years of graduate study in Tokyo.
Upon his return to China in 1922, he settled in Shanghai and taught at two universities there, while also devoting himself to script writing. In 1924 Tian and his wife founded a literary journal, and the following year he joined with four other young overseas returnees to found the Southern Dramatic Society (南国剧社) to stage progressive plays. In 1926, Tian founded the Southern Film Society (南国影社) to extend their ideas to the screen, then wrote and directed the society's first movie effort:
Dao Minjian Qu (1927)--unfinished 到民间去 (Go to the People)
Southern Film Society. B&W. Silent. Filmed between April, 1926 and January, 1927. Direction and Screenplay: Tian Han. Cast: Wu Jiaxiang, Tang Huaiqiu, Yi Su, Tang Lin, Gu Menghong, Ye Dingluo, Jiang Guangchi, Li Jinfa, Zhong Zitong, Boris Piniek.
Tian Han’s script, which narrates the story of two university students, was inspired by a poem by the Meiji Era poet Ishikawa Takuboku 石川 啄木 (1886-1912). Unfortunately, a shortage of funds resulted in the project’s early termination. The Japanese cinematographer, name unrecorded, returned home taking the negatives in lieu of the payment owed him. Tian Han later commented that “A year’s hard work and maximum effort by everyone still wasn’t enough”. It is interesting to note that none of the actors listed in the cast appear in standard Chinese film references, so may have been strictly stage actors from the Southern Dramatic Society, or perhaps amateurs.
