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Yuan Muzhi (; March 3, 1909 – January 30, 1978) was an actor and film director from the Republic of China and later of the People's Republic 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.
Yuan's second film, Street Angel (1937) ( Malu tianshi), starred then-unknown Zhou Xuan, who performed He Luting's popular songs written for the film, "Song of the Four Seasons" and "The Wandering Songstress", and became one of China's most adored divas for the remainder of her life. Street Angel is considered one of the most important Chinese films of all time, a highlight of the "second generation" of Chinese cinema. An experimental blend of comedy and tragedy, Yuan's story followed a group of young friends whose lack of financial means and social status frustrated their dreams of happiness, including a girl singer, her prostitute sister, and her soldier lover, home briefly between fighting the Japanese occupying north China. The film, released shortly before Japan invaded Shanghai and initiated the Second Sino-Japanese War in summer 1937, became a massive hit with audiences. Subsequently, Street Angel was seen to mark one of the last products of the "golden age of Chinese cinema" of the 1930s, before artists were forced to retreat to Shanghai's foreign concessions and finally came under Japanese propaganda control.
Yuan also continued to act in roles, notably Eight Hundred Heroes (1938) depicting the events of the Defense of Sihang Warehouse.
In 1938, Yuan participated in discussions on the development of "national defense cinema" and was a founder of Yan'an Film Group. Yuan arrived in Yan'an in fall 1938. With Wu Yinxian, Yuan made a feature-length documentary, Yan'an and the Eighth Route Army, which depicted the Eighth Route Army's combat against the Japanese. They also filmed Norman Bethune performing surgeries close to the front lines.
After the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, Yuan continued to be a major figure in the film industry, helping to found Dongbei Film Studio, which eventually became the first state-controlled production companies in the People's Republic of China. At the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Yuan and Chen Bo'er were sent by the Communist Party to takeover what remained of the Manchurian Motion Picture Association, which eventually became Dongbei Film Studio. In 1949, Yuan became the head of the Film Bureau and developed a nationwide film exhibition network to extend cinema beyond urban centers. Yuan thus had a major role in the development of the PRC's theories and practices of mobile projectionists traveling through rural China to play films.
Yuan was a delegate to the first National People's Congress and the third Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
| 1934 | Plunder of Peach and Plum | 桃李劫 | Tao |
| 1935 | Sons and Daughters in a Time of Storm | 風雲兒女 | Xin Baihe |
| 1935 | Scenes of City Life | 都市風光 | |
| 1936 | Unchanged Heart in Life and Death | 生死同心 | |
| 1938 | The Eight Hundred Heroes | 八百壯士 | |
| 1935 | Scenes of City Life | 都市風光 | Also known as Cityscape |
| 1937 | Street Angel | 馬路天使 | |
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