While writing first post about Ruan Lingyu (阮玲玉) “Love and duty” movie, I received some information about a new biography of the movie star. Now already a year old, this short but intense book gives an in-depth understanding of the star career and life. At the same time, it brings a lot background information about cinema in Old Shanghai.
Ruan Lingyu was born in 1910 in Zhujiajiao, a Shanghai suburb, in a Cantonese family. She grew up in poverty. The family later moved to Pudong, where her father died in 1916. In similar way to some of Ruan Lingyu’s movies, her mother had to leave her under the care of an aunt to take a job in the city. Her fate changed when her mother was hired by a the Zhang family of wealthy Cantonese and could live on the premises. Thanks to their connection, she was able to get an education along with wealthy Cantonese at Chongde Girl School on Avenue Road (today Beijing Xi Lu). Her passion for the performing arts grew with time. While staying at the Zhang house, she got in a relationship with Zhang Damin, the spoiled son of the Zhang family who became addicted to gambling. As the Ruan Lingyu and her mother were later expelled from the house, she started to live together with Zhang Damin.
Her first movie was “Husband and wife in name” (1927). Chinese cinema was still less popular than foreign movies by then, and movie actress was not regarded as a good profession, but Ruan Lingyu got a start in her career from this movie. In 1928 White Cloud Pagoda, she played along upcoming star Hu Die and started to become famous. In the meantime, her gambling husband was loosing her money away.
Her big move was to join the new Lian Hua movie company (United Photoplay in English). Movies like “Spring Dream in the old capital” (1930) and “Love and duty“(1931) were big success. Ruan Linguy’s career peaked with two master pieces, ‘The Godess”(1934) and “New Woman”(1935). At that time, she was a superstar. Unfortunately, this did not solve her personal issues and she committed suicide in 1935. Her burial was attended by an enormous amount of people and was published all over the World.
In his book, Patrick Galvan gives a lot of details about the life and films of Huan Lingyu. It also brings a lot of background information both about the film companies (in particular Lian Hua) and Shanghai cinema in 1920s and 1930s, as well as about the politics influencing Chinese movies at that time. It includes the complete list of Ruan Lingyu’s movies, many of which are now lost. Surprisingly, there is no mention of the special circumstances of “Love and duty” that disappeared for decades and was found back in Uruguay in the 1980s.
Although a short book, it is very detailed and is best read after having studied the topic a bit. One of the good preparation for reading the book, is 1991 movie “Center stage” about the life of Ruan Lingyu.
This post is part of thread about Ruan Lingyu and “Love and duty” both the movie and the book. For the full thread, go to post “Love and duty (part 1)“.