Yuan Muzhi
| Yuan Muzhi | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Background information | |
| Chinese name | 袁牧之 |
| Pinyin | Yuán Mùzhī (Mandarin) |
| Born |
March 3, 1909 Ningbo, Zhejiang |
| Died | January 30, 1978 (aged 68) Beijing |
| Occupation | Actor, film director |
| Years active | 1934 - 1938 |
Yuan Muzhi (Chinese: 袁牧之; pinyin: Yuán Mùzhī) (March 3, 1909 – January 30, 1978) was an actor and director from the Republic of China and later of the People's Republic of China.
As an actor, Yuan became extremely popular and took on the nickname "man with a thousand faces." He gained prominence in a series of films for the leftist Diantong Film Company. These included the film Plunder of Peach and Plum (1935) (which Yuan also wrote) and the movie Sons and Daughters in a Time of Storm (1935) where he was one of the two original singers (along with Gu Menghe) of the movie's theme song, The March of the Volunteers, which later became the national anthem of China.
His career eventually brought him to director's chair. Yuan's filmmaking debut, the innovative musical comedy Scenes of City Life (1935) (Dushi fengguang), was one of the earliest non-silent features made in China, as the Shanghai industry was finally transitioning to sound. The film's blend of screwball humor and romance reflected Yuan's harsh, documentary style social observations of middle class existence in the failing economy in Great Depression-era Shanghai. The father of one main character is a pawn shop owner, who in one humorous scene, is so hard up for cash himself—since no one has any money left to reclaim their pawned goods—he even attempts to pawn items from his own shop with another proprietor. The opening of the film features an extended montage of Shanghai's new, modern cityscape of the time, and its landmarks, such as neon signs, theatre marquees, and the Shanghai Cathedral. Jiang Qing, the future wife of Mao Zedong, appeared in a relatively minor role in the film. She would later lead the denunciation of many of Yuan's leftist colleagues in the Shanghai filmmaking scene, accusing them of being rightists, destroying their careers and lives.
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