In August, 2005, the Chinese entertainment media was full of stories related to the death that month of the actress Li Lili, a major Chinese movie star of the 1930s and 40s. Many of the numerous print and online stories related to her passing noted that she was the last star of China's silent movie era. True, she was that, but only narrowly: a few weeks before, another silent film star had died in Taiwan, his passing almost totally unnoticed by the mainland Chinese media. Granted, as an actor he was not as big a star as Li Lili, but he was a very significant figure in the development of Chinese film, his contributions extending well beyond acting to encompass writing, directing and producing.
Yuan Congmei was a major figure of 1930s Chinese cinema. As an actor, he usually had second or 
third male billing, often cast as a negative character, occasionally a villain, but more often such characters as the suitor the heroine was wise to have rejected, or the suave seducer eager to steer her onto the wrong path. He went into directing in the mid-1930s, and had a long career in Shanghai and later Taiwan as a director, writer and producer. He appeared in some of the outstanding classics of the 1930s -- Chinese cinema's Golden Age -- and directed several other significant works, including China's most successful anti-Japanese film of World War II. In 2003, Yuan was honored with the Taiwan Golden Rooster Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to Chinese cinema. So for someone with so lengthy and productive a career, it is at first surprising that mainland Chinese sources are so meager when it comes to information on Yuan. For example, the China Cinema Encyclopaedia (Shanghai, 1995), a standard reference work, only discusses his Shanghai film work and says little about his post-1949 career, other than it having continued in Taiwan. The reason for this relative neglect on the mainland may lie in the filmmaker's other career: for in addition to cinema, Yuan Congmei was also a high-ranking officer in the Chinese Nationalist Army, with a lifetime of military service that included participation in three Communist suppression campaigns.
Yuan Congmei 袁丛美 was born on April 13, 1904 in Changsha, Hunan, birth name Yuan Shaokang 袁少康, one of 13 sons of a Qing dynasty official with close ties to the military. Most of the future actor's siblings became soldiers, and he followed the family tradition by embarking on a military career, graduating from the Nationalist government's Whampoa Military Academy. His career path took an unexpected turn in 1926 when the Kuaihuolin film studio cast him in a supporting role in its first production《Substitution》. That experience must have given Yuan the acting bug, for after participating in the Northern Expedition, the warlord suppression campaign of 1926-27, he returned to Shanghai and joined director Dan Duyu's studio, the Shanghai Shadow Play Company. After making four films in 1928-29, he left active military service and after completing his degree work at Jinan University, turned to movies as his main career, while remaining in the army reserve. Yuan made 12 films for several studios, then in 1931 joined the Lianhua studio, initially as an actor, but in 1933 writing and directing his first film《Street Cleaner》, a comedy short featuring Han Lan'gen, Tan Ying and Liu Jiqun. He had major supporting roles in several of Lianhua's 1930s classics, including 《Daybreak》,《Song of the Fisherman》and《Little Toys》, appearing opposite such legendary leading ladies of the classic era as Li Lili, Wang Renmei and Ruan Lingyu.
In 1933, Yuan directed, wrote and acted in《Iron Bird》, China's first air force movie. In 1935, he wrote, directed, and acted the lead in《The Tempest》, a sweeping epic that also included the largest number of foreign extras seen in a Chinese film to that time. After the success of these films, the Political Section of the Republic of China Military Commission established a movie studio in Wuhan to make training films and patriotic features. The studio was outfitted with the most up-to-date equipment, imported from abroad, and Yuan was appointed studio head. Originally named the Wuhan Film Company, the studio was renamed the China Film Company after the eruption of all-out war with Japan in 1937. It's first feature film was《Jagged Loyalty》, about which nothing is known other than its being a romance set in wartime. In April, 1938, the studio completed《Loyal Patriots》, a patriotic morale-boosting movie, again directed by Yuan Congmei. Wuhan fell to the Japanese in October, 1938, and the China Film Studio moved to Chongqing. About this time, Yuan was sent to the United States for advanced study at the US Army's Tactical School, and upon his return to China was promoted to the rank of Major General and assigned to make what became China's most successful wartime film,《A Japanese Spy》. The movie was based on the Chinese edition of a memoir by Amleto Vespa, an Italian soldier of fortune who had been the chief advisor to Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin (Chang Tso-lin), but came under Japanese control after Zhang was assassinated in 1928. The book, published with the English title Secret Agent of Japan, was a best-seller in the United States. Filming of《A Japanese Spy》began in Chongqing in 1941, but was not completed until 1943, largely due to disruptions from Japanese bombing and sabotage by Japanese agents in Chongqing. After the war,《A Japanese Spy》was exhibited at the Shanghai Grand Theater, where it ran for over 40 days and set a box office record for a domestic film. (The movie and its production are of considerable historical significance, and will be discussed here in a future post.)
After the war, Yuan Congmei returned to filmmaking, and in 1948 wrote and directed a film titled《Anguish》(aka《An Unfortunate Husband》). One of the uncredited extras in the cast was a beautiful teenager named Yi Guang 夷光. Despite their age difference (Yuan was 44, she was 16), he became the aspiring young actress's mentor and guardian, starting out by providing the recommendation which gained her admission to the Department of Literature at his alma mater Jinan University. He also vowed to guide her acting career. But events soon caught up with them, for by the following spring, Shanghai was a city in chaos. In addition to runaway inflation which made purchase of even the most basic necessities all but impossible, the Communist forces were on the city's outskirts and the Nationalist army in full-scale retreat, while government officials and the wealthy were grabbing everything of value they could carry and fleeing in panic. As a high-ranking army officer with a strong anti-Communist history, Yuan Congmei naturally welcomed the chance to escape. But he had a major problem: those whose standing allowed boarding a ship for Taiwan were restricted to bringing along immediate family only. Yuan was a single parent, with two daughters from an early marriage, and while this was not a problem, he also had Yi Guang to worry about. Their precise relationship at that time is unrecorded, but regardless of whether Yi Guang was his protégé, girl friend or mistress, none of these qualified her for evacuation. So one day in May, 1949, Yuan and Yi raced frantically throughout Shanghai, seeking someone to marry them. At last they were successful, after which they made a mad dash to the dock, where the newlyweds and Yuan's daughters successfuly boarded the last ship out of Shanghai.
In Taiwan, Yuan Congmei was put in charge of the government agency overseeing movie production, and in addition was appointed a provincial senator. (For many years the Republic of China parliament -the Legislative Yuan - included representatives for each of the provinces on the mainland, since the governnment considered itself the government in exile of all China, not just Taiwan.) True to his word, Yuan mentored his young wife's career, and she became a major star of Taiwan movies in the 1950s and 60s, often starring in sexy romantic comedies. The ones I have seen are reminiscent of the Doris Day - Rock Hudson movies made in Hollywood in those years, with Yi Guang often wearing as little clothing as censorship would allow. The Taiwan press dubbed Yi Guang the "No.1 Taiwan beauty." But by 1960 the marital relationship had become a rocky one, due in part to the couple's age difference, but even more to his domineering and possessiveness. For example, until 1959 Yuan refused to allow his wife to travel alone outside of Taiwan, which prevented her from working in Hong Kong, where Yi was very popular and the movie industry was on the threshold of a boom era. The major studios were clamoring for her, and industry pressure forced him to agree to her filming in Hong Kong for the MP & GI and Shaw Brothers studios. Even then, he insisted she return home as soon as filming was completed, and although she often expressed her longing to travel and see other places, he was adamant in his refusal.
[left, Yi Guang at the height of her career]
At last Yi Guang could take the stifling confinement no more, and after fulfilling a movie commitment in Hong Kong in 1961, she simply stayed there. Yuan called her often, urging she return, but she evaded saying for certain when she would. At one point in late 1961 he flew to Hong Kong in hopes of bringing her back, only to find that she had avoided meeting him by going to Macao (after first telling the press she was going to the Phillippines, to throw him off the trail). When her Hong Kong visa ran out in 1962, she traveled to Thailand, and when that visa expired, she returned to Hong Kong. In 1963 Yi Guang told the press she would return to Taiwan, but by 1964 she was still elsewhere, sometimes in the places already mentioned, then for a time in Singapore. Her reluctance to return to Taiwan is understandable: the Nationalist government that ruled the island at that time was an authoritarian regime that considered itself still in a state of war with the mainland (the Communists on the mainland still shelled the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu on alternate days, and there were occasional aerial dogfights over the Taiwan Strait). So given the political situation and her husband's considerable political clout, Yi Guang probably regarded herself as a caged bird and, should she return, might never be able to leave again. In late 1964 Yuan Congmei at last agreed to a divorce and filed the necessary papers with the authorities. 
[right, "the very model of a modern Major General"]
But in 1965 stories began to appear in the media about a new man in Yi Guang's life, a Singapore Chinese. For a time it seemed every prominent businessman and politician in Singapore was speculated as being the lucky man. (Even Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew!) But at last it was determined for certain that his surname was Zhou 周, and rather than a public figure he was a 30-something accountant. Yuan Congmei reacted to this with a declaration that such a remarriage would be bigamy, basing his claim on the fact Yi Guang had never returned to Taiwan to sign the divorce papers in person. He hired an attorney and filed a lawsuit to prevent her from remarrying. But to his dismay, in 1966 the Taiwan court threw out his suit, ruling that the divorce was final, the couple no longer had legal standing as man and wife, and therefore his case had no merit. Following this ruling, Yi Guang and her new love flew to Italy, where they married in late 1966. She then retired from movies, and disappeared forever from public view.
[left, cover of Yuan Congmei's movie memoirs]
For Yuan Congmei, a man with considerable political power used to having his own way, this was a considerable blow. But after so much cinema and military success, marital failure appears to have shocked him into making the best of his remaining years. In addition to his love of movies, Yuan had always believed strongly in education, and now devoted himself to that. He retired from the army and filmmaking and accepted a position teaching high school. He later was appointed dean of an art school, and in 1980 became a full-time professor, teaching at Tamkang University and the Fu Jen Catholic University. In 2002, Yuan published his movie memoirs, providing a rare insider's view of classic era Chinese filmmaking. In 2003, at the 40th Golden Horse Awards (Taiwan's counterpart of the Oscars), Yuan Congmei was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing a major contributor to Chinese cinema, one whose career spanned silent to sound, black and white to color. Although by then he was 99 and wheelchair-bound, Yuan's acceptance speech was described by those present as entertaining, witty and informative, and delivered in a strong voice. 
[right, an old soldier fading into the twilight]
On July 16, 2005, Yuan Congmei quietly passed away of natural causes, age 101.
_____________________
For further reading:
An excellent overview of Shanghai in those last, frantic days before its fall to the Communists can be found in:
Barber, Noël. The fall of Shanghai: the Communist take-over in 1949. Macmillan, 1979.
*
Yuan's memoirs provide us with a rare glimpse into China's classic era of filmmaking:
Yuan, Ts'ung-mei, as told to Huang Jen. Yuan Ts'ung-mei recalls 70 years of filmmaking. (袁叢美從影七十年回憶錄). Taipei: Yatai, 2002. ISBN 9789578264915.
*
The Yuan/Yi marital breakup is reviewed in considerable detail by a Taiwan movie blog (in Chinese) with documented sources taken from the Taiwan media.
----------------------------------
Filmography (as actor, unless noted otherwise):
1926:
Substitution
1928:
Lu Binhua (aka Young Swordsman)
The Towering Demon
1929:
The Candy Beauty
Women's Building, I-III
1930:
The Flirt
Tofu Xishi
Unlucky
Strange Case in the Studio
Island of Women, I-II
Spring Dream
Wailing in an Empty Valley
1931:
The Tiger General
Stranger in an Old House
She Used to be My Wife
An Eastern Story
1932:
Stealth
Regrets (aka Mistaken Marriage)
Wartime Romance
A Music Teacher
Loving Blood of the Volcano
Struggle
1933:
Daybreak
Stirrings of Love
Little Toys
The Wind
Early Morning in the Metropolis
The Street Cleaner (director, writer)
1934:
Raging Waves of the China Sea
The Road (aka Bright Road)
Iron Bird (also director, writer)
Fairy Maiden in the Human World
Song of the Fishermen
1935:
Refugees
The Night Before the Wedding
The Beginning of Life (aka Old People)
I Hate Sentimentalism
Shadows
The Tempest (aka The Martyr)
1937:
Jagged Loyalty
1938:
Loyal Patriots (director, writer)
1943:
A Japanese Spy (director)
1945:
Lake of Love (director)
Battlefield Melancholy (director)
1947:
A Long-Standing Grudge (director)
1948:
Cry at Midnight
Anguish (aka An Unfortunate Husband) (director, writer)
Intelligence Agent No.5 (also writer)
Haunted Shadows
Without a Soul
1949:
Sunset Red Tears
1955:
Poppy
1957:
Ah Meina (also producer)
1959:
Death in a Den of Monsters (director)
1960:
Conscience and Sin (director)
1961:
Death Trap (director)
Supplementary Report (director)
Romantic Trio (director)
Sunset Tears (director)
1967:
Tracking (director)
The earliest Chinese movies were filmed without a script, just a story outline, with the actors largely ad-libbing the progress of the plot. This began to change at the beginning of the 1920s with the appearance of "
