The Chinese Mirror

《Gunshot at Midnight》(1932)

    After its several years of dormancy, by the early 1930s the Hong Kong movie industry was slowly coming back, helped in no small part by the well-funded and talent-rich Lianhua (United Photoplay) studio setting up a HK branch.  This was a popular release from Lianhua, a silent era murder mystery.

Yeban Qiangsheng (1932) 夜半枪声 (Gunshot at Midnight)

    Lianhua, produced at the Hong Kong studio.  B&W.  Silent.  Released May 29, 1932.  Direction:  Guan Wenqing, Chen Wu.  Screenplay:  Cao Xueyu.  Executive Producer:  Luo Mingyou.  Cast:  Wu Chufan (Qian Ruming), Huang Manli (Qian's daughter), Tang Xingtu (Qian's concubine), Li Tie (Zhou Huaiyuan), He Dasha (the cousin), Hu Yixing (the nephew), Chen Wuchang (the butler).

    A whodunnit in the classic British style, complete with spooky mansion, a variety of suspects, and a sinister butler lurking about. Late one night, a shot rings out at the mansion of millionaire Qian Ruming, and when the lights come on the wealthy man is found murdered.  Among the various suspects with motives are Qian's concubine, his nephew and the concubine's cousin.  Everything appears to center around the concubine, and the investigation focuses on her.  Eighteen years earlier, she was a young beauty with many suitors, but she fell for scholar Zhou Huaiyuan.  Although Zhou was the one she loved, she decided to follow her ambitions for status and money rather than her heart, and became the millionaire's concubine.  Years later, she and the scholar happened to meet again, and rekindled their romance.  It turns out Zhou was the one who killed Qian.

Note:  this was the film debut for Wu Chufan [Cantonese:  Ng Cho-Fan] in the role of the middle-aged murder victim, although Wu was only 21 years old at the time.  Before his retirement in 1966, he made more than 250 movies in Shanghai and Hong Kong, portraying a wide variety of roles and becoming one of the most familiar character actors in Chinese movies.

[right, although no stills from this film are known to exist, a publicity photo taken about that time featured two of its actors, Wu Chufan and Huang Manli, both of whom went on to distinguished careers for several decades to come]

Kwan Shan, Hong Kong actor-director, dead at 79

[left, Kwan Shan in the 1960s, at the height of his career]  

   We recently posted about a 1930 docudrama relating the events surrounding an infamous 19th century legal case, a case which has been given several stage and screen versions since.  The search for an illustration connected with the 1930 film was fruitless, so we drew on an advertisement for the 1963 Shaw Brothers treatment to accompany our article.  Now comes word that Kwan Shan, the actor who played the accused scholar Yang Naiwu in that later version and is pictured in the ad, has died in Hong Kong of lung cancer.

    Kwan Shan 关山 (PinYin:  Guan Shan; Wade-Giles:  Kuan Shan) was born April 20, 1933 in Shenyang, Liaoning province, of Manchu ethnicity.  In 1954 he successfully tested into acting school, and in 1956 joined the Great Wall (HK) movie studio, and that same year acted the title role in《The True Story of Ah Q》, adapted from Lu Xun's famous novel of the same title.  His performance won him the Silver Sail award for Best Actor at that year's Locarno International Film Festival, making him at age 25 the first Hong Kong film actor to win Best Actor in international competition.  In 1961 Kwan moved to the Shaw Brothers studio, where he became one of Shaw's mainstay romantic leading men during its golden era of the 1960s.  During that decade, he played opposite many of Shaw's top female stars, beginning with Lin Dai in《Everlasting Love》(1961).  In 1962, he married Zhang Bingxi [aka Cheung Bing Sai], an actress with Great Wall.  The couple divorced in 1982, but before that had two daughters, one of whom grew up to become the famous and very popular Hong Kong star Rosamund Kwan.  In 1972, Kwan Shan left Shaw to produce《Brutal Boxer》(aka《Blood Fingers》for his own film studio, the Far East Motion Picture Company, serving as producer, director and studio head.  After this, Kwan Shan moved into television in Hong Kong and Taiwan, effectively ending his motion picture career although he appeared in several small screen roles in the 1980s. Following his 1982 divorce, Kwan Shan emigrated to the United States, and although retired, on return visits to Hong Kong he would appear occasionally in small roles, cameos really, in such films as《A Better Tomorrow II》(1987) and《Police Story 2》(1988).  His last such appearance was in 1993's《The Executioners》.  After being diagnosed with his final illness, Kwan Shan returned to Hong Kong to live out his final days there with his surviving family.  

UPDATE:  Chinese sources differ as to Kwan Shan's birth year:  Hong Kong and Singapore media give it as 1933, which I have used here; but mainland Chinese media say 1929, which would make his age at death as 83, not 79.  A Chinese correspondent informs me that some mainland filmmakers who relocated to Hong Kong pared a few years from their ages when they arrived, so that earlier date is a possibility. 

《Iron Bone and Orchid Heart》(1931)

Tiegu Lanxin (1931) 铁骨蓝心 (Iron Bone and Orchid Heart)

    Lianhua (HK).  B&W.  Silent.  Romance.  Release date November 29, 1931.  Executive Producer:  Luo Mingyou.  Production Supervisor:  Li Beihai.  Direction:  Guan Wenqing [i.e. Moon Kwan].  Screenplay:  Liang Shaobo.  Cinematography:  Luo Yongxiang.  Cast:  Shi Youyu [i.e. Sek Yao-yu] (Zhang Guoqiang), Feng Jiezhen [i.e. Fung Kit-ching] (Cai Lilan), Mai Yihan [i.e. Mak Ngai-hon] (Henry Wong).  

[Names in square brackets are the filmmakers' Cantonese names]

[right, Hong Kong newspaper ad for《Iron Bone and Orchid Heart》

    A millionaire has one child, his daughter Lilan, a beautiful and fun-loving girl who has no end of suitors.  One day, when she and one of these suitors, Henry Wong, are out on a date, the couple is mugged.  The weak and cowardly Henry runs away, but a neighborhood blacksmith named Zhang Guoqiang saves the girl and drives off the would-be mugger.  Later, on a boat trip, Lilan falls into the water but again the blacksmith is on hand to dive in and rescue her.  Deciding she must change her lifestyle and apply her fortune to doing good, Lilan takes up philanthropy and establishes a kindergarten for poor children.  When a fire breaks out at the school, the young blacksmith rushes in to save her once again.  Believing that their interactions in these crises are signals from heaven they are meant for each other, the now love-struck Lilan sends a matchmaker to Guoqiang's parents offering her hand in marriage.  But although his parents are enthusiastic, Guoqiang rejects the overtures, feeling that the economic and social disparities between the two would make for an ill-fated match.  The rejected Lilan falls ill, and when word of her emotion reaches Guoqiang, he is so touched that he agrees to become her husband.

    《Iron Bone and Orchid Heart》was a "first" for Hong Kong films in several categories.  It was the first feature-length HK production for the Lianhua studio, before it changed its HK branch's name to "Overseas Lianhua," and is believed to be the first Chinese film to use a hand-held camera, at least in a HK production.  Also, while films advocating freedom of marriage had been made for several years by Shanghai studios, this was the first HK production to do so.  In that regard, there are some interesting variations to this:  while the young woman seeks to exercise marital choice, she chooses the traditional means of a matchmaker to do so; and the young man exercises his own freedom of choice by initially going against his parents to reject her proposal. 

Time Out Magazine's 100 Greatest Hong Kong Films

    Granted, it's just one man's opinion but his list brings back some memories, a desire to watch some old favorites again, and a handy check list for others previously unseen:

The 100 Greatest Hong Kong Films 

The Minxin Film Company (1923): from Hong Kong to Shanghai

    The Minxin Film Company (aka China Sun Motion Picture Company) was one of China's early privately owned film enterprises, founded in Hong Kong in 1923 by three brothers, Li Minwei, Li Beishan and Li Haishan.  Li Haishan assumed the post of president, with younger brother Li Minwei as vice-president, although as the photography expert his chief responsibility was to film news films, which the brothers at first saw as their studio's main mission.

    In the spring of 1924, Li Minwei [Lai Man-wai in Cantonese] took his camera equipment to Beijing to make several short films of Mei Lanfang in the performance of selections from some of his most famous opera scenes, selections which which Li then edited into two longer movies.  That winter, the brothers set up a new studio in Guangzhou, which Li Minwei used as his base for filming a batch of news documentaries that recorded Sun Yat-sen's anti-warlord activities.  

[Key members of the Minxin Company at the main gate of its new Shanghai building.  Li Minwei and his actress wife Lin Chuchu are the first two from the left.  Note the studio also used the English name "China Sun Motion Picture Co."  Adding an English name that was not a translation of its Chinese title was a common practice among Shanghai studios and movie theaters.  Click on photo to view full size.]

    But in spite of the Li Brothers' initial tilt toward newsfilms and documentaries, their breakthrough came in 1925, when Li Beihai wrote and directed《Rouge》which he had adapted from a story in《Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio》, the classic anthology of tales of the supernatural.  It was the first full-length fiction film made in Hong Kong, with brother Li Minwei and his wife Lin Chuchu acting the leads.  The film was very well-received by both audiences and critics, but the studio's Hong Kong era came to an abrupt halt just a year later, when the south China general strike reached Hong Kong and shut down the movie industry.  So the brothers moved their operation to Shanghai and constructed a new studio building.  In addition to making their own movies there, Minxin provided production facilities for smaller studios as well as processing and exhibiting services, and also opened the Minxin Film School to train new talent.  Li Minwei took responsibility for production and technology and businessman Li Yingsheng 李英生 (no relation), a French-educated jeweler, was brought in as Minxin's chief financial and management officer.  Until the studio could create its own pool of trained actors, onscreen talent consisted basically of family members and good friends, while directors and writers were recruited from other Shanghai studios, and included such outstanding early filmmakers as Ouyang Yuqian, Hou Yao and Sun Yu.  

    While the Minxin company had a very serious attitude at first, and looked upon all this creative talent as a potential dream team, the individual talents couldn't seem to agree on what the studio should be producing, and how, so they never really jelled as a creative unit.  But in spite of these internal disagreements, with everyone going their own way, Minxin was very productive, in its first year of operation turning out《The God of Peace》,《Three Years Later》and《Why Not Her?》.  In 1927, its first full year, the studio produced six more features, including《Greenwoods Heroine》, its first martial arts movie, and《Romance of the West Chamber》a very successful film that is still extant.  Six more features were produced in 1928, among them: 《The Flying Shoes》, a children's film based on a German fairy tale;《Guan Yin Receives the Way》;《Mulan Joins the Army》, the first film treatment of the girl warrior legend; and《Five Avenging Women》which featured both Li Minwei's first and second wives in principal roles.  With the studio's five productions in 1929, which included《Knight Errant》, with future matinee idol Jin Yan in his first leading role, the studio had made a total of 20 films covering a variety of topics.  But later that year, as in Hong Kong, Minxin was hit by two financial blows outside its control:  first, the worldwide economic depression hit Shanghai, shrinking the potential movie audience; and second, fiscal whiz Li Yingsheng resigned.  The following year, the remaining company management decided it had no choice but to join the multi-studio merger that formed the Lianhua Film Company under new chief executive Luo Mingyou 罗明佑, which went on to be one of Shanghai's three dominant movie studios in the 1930s, along with Zhang Shichuan's Mingxing Company and Tianyi, the Shao (Shaw) Brothers Shanghai studio. 
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Principal sources [all in Chinese]:

Feng, Qun [Fung, Kwan] 凤群 (Guangdong Wuyi Univ., Coll. of Liberal Arts).  Li Minwei ping zhuan 黎民伟评传 (A Critical Biography of Li Minwei).  Beijing:  Culture and Arts Press, 2009.  ISBN 9787503936920.

 "The contemporary significance of revolutionary filmmaker Li Minwei."  -- retrieved 8-3-2010.

 Li, Xi 黎锡 (Guangming Daily).  "Li Minwei:  at revolution with Mr. Sun Yat-sen." -- retrieved 8-03-2012.  

Fen Juhua (1900 - 1994): The Teacher

    In the history of martial arts films, the name Fen Juhua 粉菊花 is little known outside of Asia, if at all.  Yet while her own movie acting career was limited to a handful of films many years ago, she had a massive and long-term impact on Chinese movie history, particularly that of Hong Kong. 

[left, a rare surviving photo of the young Fen Juhua]

    Fen Juhua's precise birthplace is unrecorded, but it is known that she was a Cantonese, raised in Shanghai and originally surnamed Sun 孙.  Trained from childhood in classical Peking opera, she specialized in playing wudan (a female martial type, a role that demands performing difficult acrobatics).  She was already a major stage star when she made her first film in 1925, acting the title role in《Heroine Li Feifei》, which related the story of a female Robin Hood type.  It created a sensation among the public, in part because of its casting:  Fen Juhua and her male lead Lin Yongrong (林雍容）were two major stars of the Shanghai stage, both now making their first screen appearance.  Also, while the use of wires to simulate flying (a technique which later became known in the West as "wire fu") was nothing new in Chinese film, and while heroic swordswomen were not unknown, this movie is believed to be the first in which an actress performed flying roles.
 

[right, program notes for《Heroine Li Feifei》. Fen Juhua is at the center, with Wu Suxin directly above her (12 O'clock); co-star Lin Yongrong is at 1:00. Click on any image to view full size.]

    Following that initial success, Fen Juhua went on to make a few more silent films based on Chinese folk tales or historical novels, but after that she concentrated exclusively on stage work for the rest of her mainland career.  In 1949, she left Shanghai and relocated to Hong Kong, where she at last fulfilled a dream she had held for some time.  This was an acting school, the Chun Chow 春秋 School of Drama, which aimed to revitalize classic Chinese opera by preparing young performers to carry on the tradition.  In the years to come, her school became legendary for the number of HK stage and screen actors and actresses it trained.  One area of particular excellence for her school was in teaching aspiring young performers the art of what is known as "acrobatic fighting" (武打) (the use of movements which simulate actual combat by actors and actresses who are not actually martial artists).  This became an important source of talent for Hong Kong action films, especially women, for while there was a plentiful supply of young men who had martial arts training, often from childhood, relatively few aspiring actresses had undergone actual martial arts training.  So a school that could turn out a pool of female "fighting" talent would be a major contributor to the fast-growing Hong Kong action film industry.  Numerous future movie, stage, opera and TV stars owed their success in large measure to Fen Juhua's training.  Among her disciples are names which would be recognized by any Hong Kong film fan, such as Ching-Ying Lam, Josephine Siao, Panpan Yeung, Austin Wai, John Lone ... as well as many others perhaps not as famous but eventually to become mainstays of Hong Kong action films. 

[right, Fen Juhua with Li Lihua in 1956's《Blood on the Snow》] 

    In the 1950s and 1960s, Fen Juhua still made occasional screen appearances, but was more involved with motion pictures as an advisor/consultant, sometiimes well down in the credits, if credited at all.  In 1961, she and Peking opera impresario Li Guoxiang (李国祥) co-founded the Chun Chow Film Company to make a film which would showcase Fen Juhua's apprentices from her acting school.  This production, released February 14, 1962, was《The Capture of the Evil Demons》, which introduced such future talents as Chi-wah Sum, Connie Chan Po-chu and Lulu Zhang to the screen.  We don't know if it gave Fen Juhua the inspiration, but it is reminiscent of the Shanghai Mingxing studio's 1922 comedy short《The King of Comedy Visits Shanghai》, which provided a role of some sort to every student in the studio's acting school.

    In 1990, Fen Juhua relocated (along with her son and his family) to her ancestral home of Guangzhou.  She lived out her days there, dying in 1994.
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Filmography (credited roles only; all as actress, unless noted):

1925:
Heroine Li Feifei                             ... Li Feifei

1926:
The Cowherd and the Weaving Girl  ... Sister Hua
Princess Lotus, pts. I-III                   ... Princess Lotus

1927:
Three Kingdoms:  Seven Captures     ... 

1953:
Sorrowful Glory                               ... bride's counselor
General Chai and Lady Balsam         (guest asst. director)

1954:
Beauty Contest                              ... contest judge

1956：
Blood in the Snow                          ... Wen Yanmi

1958:
The Story of Lu Siniang                  (Li Lihua's personal trainer)

1961:
Les Belles                                    (dance director)
The Invincible Yeung Generals      (action director))
(aka The Conqueress; aka Female General Mrs. Yeung)

1962:
The Capture of the Evil Demons      ... Madame Chiu (also executive producer)
(aka Battle of Sizhou)

1963:
The Magic Sword of Tianshan      (martial arts consultant) 
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Representative Work:

Nüxia Li Feifei (1925) 女侠李飞飞 (Swordswoman Li Feifei)

    Tianyi.  B&W.  Silent.  10 reels.  Premiered:  December 16, 1925 at the Palace Theater in Shanghai.  Direction:  Shao Zuiweng.  Screenplay:  Shao Cunren, Gao Lihen.  Cinematography:  Xu Shaoyu.  Principal cast:  Fen Juhua (Li Feifei), Lin Yongrong (Hong Yulin), Wu Suxin (Hui Zhu), Wei Pengfei (Zhang Shen), Gao Lihen (Chen Shu'an), Tan Zhiyuan (Guo Houzhai).

    Swordswoman Li Feifei is beloved by the common people for her Robin Hood persona, i.e. protecting them from tyrannical landlords, etc. 

Huang Manli / Mary Wong (1913-1998)

  [left, Huang Manli early in her career, in the 1930s.]

    Huang Manli 黄曼梨 (Cantonese:  Wong Man-li, English name Mary Wong), was one of the most prolific Chinese movie (and later TV) actresses over five decades, mostly in her native Hong Kong, where she was born Huang Wensu 黄文素 in 1913, to a family with ancestral origins in Zhongshan, Guangdong.  After receiving an education in parochial schools operated by Italian missionaries, she joined the Jinan studio in Shanghai, making her debut in a 7-part martial arts series《24 Heroes》(1930-32).  When the Lianhua studio opened its Hong Kong branch in 1932, she returned home to make a succession of silents, and her first sound film in 1935, the Cantonese production,《Yesterday's Song》.  From that initial 1930 appearance through 1966, she amassed over 300 big screen credits, then moved into television, becoming a regular in several 1970s and 80s TV series and miniseries.  It is interesting how her roles evolved:  while at first she was often cast as evil and manipulative sister-in-law types who make the heroine's life miserable, she broke free from that to become most familiar to Cantonese movie fans as the long-suffering and faithful "dutiful wife and loving mother" character type portrayed so often on 1930s Shanghai screens by Lin Chuchu.  

[right, Huang Manli in the 1940s, in a typical suffering mother role]

    In her later years, especially on TV, Huang Manli often portrayed family matriarchs.  Offscreen, Huang Manli was very active in professional matters, being one of the co-founders of the Hong Kong and South China Film Industry Workers Union in 1952, and later serving two terms as the organization's president.  Huang Manli died in Hong Kong of natural causes on April 8, 1998. 

 

[left, a middle-aged matriarch, 1950s and beyond]

《The Pain of Separation》(1931)

Ketu Qiuhen (1931) 客途秋恨 (The Pain of Separation)

    Hong Kong Film Co.  B&W.  Silent.   Premiere:  March 26, 1931.  Direction and Screenplay:  Li Beihai, adapted from a Cantonese folk tale and opera.  Cinematography:  Ren Pengnian.  Cast:  Sit Siu-wing [Xie Zhaorong]  (Miu Lin-sin), Lap Kin-han [Li Jianyin] (Mak Chau-kuen), Cheng Wah-chi [Zheng Huayi] (Emperor Chan), Cheung Wai-man [Zhang Huiwen] (Maid), Chu Po-chuen [Zhu Puquan] (Servant).

    Note:  cast members names are given in the Cantonese versions, with Mandarin names in brackets.  Character names are in parentheses.

    A brilliant young scholar meets a courtesan, and they fall in love at first sight.  When war breaks out, he leaves for the army, vowing to return.  But the war also causes the couple to lose contact, and after composing a ballad vowing his undying love, he sets out on a long journey searching for her.  In the end, the two are reunited.  This was the first Hong Kong production to be adapted from a folk tale/Cantonese opera.  It was remade in 1949 by the Sanxing (Three Star) studio, but with a different ending similar to that of "The Butterfly Lovers."

《Join the Army and Live》(1926)

Congjun Meng (1926) 从军梦 (Join the Army and Live)
literal English title:  A Dream of Joining the Army

    Guangya Film Co. (Hong Kong).  B&W.  Silent.  Premiered  February 5, 1926 at the Jurufang Theater in Hong Kong.  Direction: Chan Kwun-chiu (Mandarin:  Chen Junchao).  Principal cast:  Lu Juefei, Zhong Xiaqing.

    The Guangya Film Company was a joint venture cooperation started by 10 entrepreneurs, with the aim of "critiquing society in order to awaken the people's conscience [and thereby] rescue them from vulgarity and decadence, which would then be a "positive force in social construction."  The company made five films.  This film was screened with a slapstick comedy short titled《A Thief Comes Unstuck》, and while these were well-accepted by those who attended, the release was in the midst of the Guangdong-HK General Strike, which effectively ended Hong Kong as a filmmaking venue for several years. Shortly after, the Guangya Company moved to Guangzhou, but ceased operations before making any more productions.

    Despite the film's title, which would seem to be a paean to military service, it was actually an expose of the curse of warlordism, told against the background of the common people's longing for peace, and advocated disbanding the warlord armies (a Chinese government objective) and converting to farm workers the large number of demobilized soldiers that would result.  

Yan Shanshan: the first Chinese movie actress

    We discussed in an earlier post the life and career of early Chinese filmmaker Li Minwei, the acknowledged "father of Hong Kong movies," who cast his then-wife Yan Shanshan in his 1913 film 《Zhuangzi Tests his Wife》in a small supporting role as a servant, enshrining her in movie history as the first female to appear on screen in a Chinese motion picture.  The couple divorced several years later, and the facts concerning her later life are sketchy.  It is a pity that so little has been recorded regarding the life and off-screen activities of the first Chinese woman to appear in a motion picture, for what little information we have indicates she was a remarkable woman.  In addition to being a movie "first," she was a revolutionary and political activist, and an early feminist, dumping her husband when she realized the marriage wasn't right for either of them, but taking the initiative of finding him an acceptable second wife before ending their marital relationship.

[right, Yan Shanshan about the time she made her screen debut] 

    Yan Shanshan 严姗姗 was the stage name of Yan Shuji 严淑姬 , born in 1896 to a prominent family in Nanhai, Guangdong.  She graduated from Hong Kong Itoku Normal School, with a strong interest in the politics and current issues of the day and having revolutionary sympathies.  During the Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the Manchu dynasty and established the Republic of China, she was a member of a women's bomb squad (unfortunately, I could find no further information on this group).  It is not certain, but likely, that it was during this period of service that she met Li Minwei, a talented young photographer who was also serving the Revolution as a combat photographer.  In any case, the couple were married on January 7, 1913, and when later that year Li Minwei made his first motion picture, he cast Yan Shanshan in her pioneering appearance. 

[left, Yan Shanshan in her teenage school days]

    The traditions of the Chinese operatic stage dictated that female roles were always played by men.  Even the emergence of "modern drama" following the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), did not break this tradition.  Chinese cinema was born in 1905, but until the making of this short film in 1913 the tradition continued of having all roles, male and female, played by male actors.  Chinese movie historians have speculated whether this breakthrough could have taken place somewhere other than Hong Kong, which had the liberalizing influence of a long period of British rule.  Interestingly, the principal female role in《Zhuangzi》, that of the philosopher's wife, was played by Li Minwei himself, but we don't know if this was due to the lack of a suitable actress or because Li felt that would be going too much against tradition.  But that tradition was a powerful one, even in the relatively open city of Shanghai:  when the Qing government promulgated its first regulations on movies, it specifically decreed that "men and women must be separate."  It was not until《Yan Ruisheng》(1921) that a woman would act in a mainland film, when Wang Caiyun (herself a former brothel inmate) portrayed the murdered prostitute Wang Lianying.

[left, Yan in an undated photo, probably from the 1920s]    

So although her part was a small one, it was sufficient to assure Yan Shanshan's place in Chinese

movie history.  Little is recorded concerning her later years after her divorce from Li Minwei, although she did make a few more screen appearances, the last in 1928.  She died in 1952.
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Filmography:

1913:
Zhuangzi Tests his Wife ... the maid
1926:
The God of Peace ... Hua Mulan
1928:
Five Avenging Women ...
Reviving Romance ...