Chen Liting

Chen Liting (; 20 October 1910 – 27 August 2013) was a Chinese playwright, drama and film director, screenwriter, and film theorist. He was one of the most prominent film directors and screenwriters in pre-Communist China, together with Shi Dongshan, Cai Chusheng, and Zheng Junli. His most famous film was Women Side by Side.

Chen was abandoned as an infant, and then lost both foster parents during early childhood. Before becoming a film director, Chen worked mainly in drama. His patriotic play Put Down Your Whip was highly influential and performed countless times during the Japanese invasion of China. During the war he also made a famous staging of the play Qu Yuan, and wrote one of the first Chinese books on film theory.

After the early 1950s, Chen's attempts at filmmaking were repeatedly thwarted by the PRC government for political reasons. He worked as general manager of Tianma Film Studio before being imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution. After his rehabilitation at the end of the period, he spent three years on the historical film Da Feng Ge, but retired after that film was also cancelled due to politics.

Early life Born in Shanghai on 20 October 1910, Chen Liting was abandoned as an infant and adopted by foster parents. However, he lost his adoptive father at the age of four, and three years later his adoptive mother also died. It became extremely influential and was staged countless times throughout China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The future Madame Mao, then known as Li Yunhe, was also among its many performers. It also inspired famous paintings by artists Xu Beihong and Situ Qiao.

Second Sino-Japanese War Chen returned to Shanghai in 1932, where he wrote film reviews and translated Soviet books on filmmaking into Chinese. After the Japanese invaded China in 1937, Chen joined the resistance movement, serving as the leader of the fourth brigade of the Shanghai Salvation Drama Troupe, which performed numerous patriotic street plays including Put Down Your Whip. The troupe fled Shanghai before it fell to the Japanese, traveling and performing for the next three years under harsh conditions through central and southwest China.

Between WWII and 1949

After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Chen returned to Shanghai. He joined the China Film No. 2 Studio that was newly established by the Nationalist government. He wrote and directed the film Far Away Love, whose premiere in Shanghai's Huanghou Theatre on 18 January 1947 was considered a landmark event in postwar Chinese cinema.

In the 1950s Chen was appointed director for the upcoming film Li Shizhen. However, due to his insistence that the director, rather than government administrators, have artistic control, he was dismissed and the film was directed by his friend Shen Fu.

In the early 1960s, Chen spent three years preparing to make a film about the life of Lu Xun, starring Zhao Dan, Yu Lan, and Sun Daolin, but the film was cancelled by the Shanghai's Communist Party Chief Ke Qingshi for political reasons. The couple had one child, a daughter named Chen Maoni , who emigrated to the United States.