Pan Lei

Pan Lei (潘壘), a Taiwanese film director and writer, was born on August 4, 1927, whose original name was Pan Chengde, also known as Pan Lei and his pen name Xinxi(心曦). After joining the army to fight the Japanese at the border of China and India, he came to Taiwan in 1949 and became a well known writer and journal publisher. He began his film career as a scriptwriter and directed his first film in 1959. His third film Typhoon (颱風; 1962) was outstanding among its contemporary films with its bold presentation of female desire and artistic achievement, which won him the praise of "Father of Taiwanese Art Cinema" (台灣藝術電影之父) and the invitation to make films for the Shaw Brothers. He died on July 22, 2017.

Life and career Pan Lei was born in Haiphong, Vietnam in 1927. After the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, he moved to Yunnan with his family and enrolled in Kunming Yue Xiu Middle School, then joined the Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army in Kunming in 1943. In the spring of 1946, Pan was discharged from the army and returned to his hometown due to injury. He found himself caught in the conflict between Vietnam and France, so he went to Shanghai in January 1947 and applied to resume his studies in National Jiangsu Medical College. During his studies, he devoted himself to creative work, writing poems, essays and short stories. In May 1949, as KMT was losing the Chinese Civil War, Pan moved to Taiwan.

After arriving in Taipei, Pan Lei worked as the manager of a small department store specializing in Hong Kong products. In addition to continuing the writing of his long novel The Red River Trilogy (紅河三部曲), he invested all he had, gold bars he brought from Shanghai, to establish the literary journal Bao Dao Wen Yi (寶島文藝; Formosa Literature). The journal did not last for more than a year and Pan lost all his savings. To make a living, Pan started to write, using different pen names, but his income was so meager that he sometimes could not even afford his meals. Thanks to the help of Chang Tao-fan (張道藩), his writings were published in Literary Creation (文藝創作) and won several awards from the Chinese Literature Award (文獎會). In 1952, he published The Red River Trilogy with his own money, a 600-page book depicting the sorrows and bloodshed of the Chinese in the context of Vietnam.

In 1956, Pan Lei adapted his own novel into a screenplay and was recommended by an elder to meet Li Ye (李葉), the then General Manager of Central Pictures Corporation Co., Ltd, (中央電影公司) and found a job there as screenwriter.

Pan Lei founded his own company, Hsien Dai Motion Pictures (現代電影電視實驗中心) in 1963 in Taipei, with the idea of combining the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (CSC) and Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) into one. Pan subsequently made Lovers' Rock (情人石) and Song of Orchid Island (蘭嶼之歌) for Shaw Brothers, both films are set in Taiwan’s scenic locations. Unfortunately, due to financial difficulties, Pan had to sell it to Zhou Jian-guang (周劍光)in 1968, who turned it into Hwa Kuo Film Studio Co., Ltd. (華國電影製片廠).

Pan married actress Wen Ling, who was fifteen years younger than him, in 1960. Wen Ling’s original name was Zeng Qingmei, but Pan said that he liked to call her by her stage name.

Pan was one of the representative writers of anti-Communist literature. He founded Bao Dao Wen Yi, one of the major anti-Communist literary magazines in the 1950s all by himself without government’s subsidies. It was the only major literary publication at the time and led to the rise of literary magazines in Taiwan.

Filmography 1984: Woman of Colour 1981: The Tattoo 1980: Strange Story of Crematory 1978: The Adventure of the "Heaven Mouse" 1977: The Crooks 1975: Cuties Parade 1975: Evil Seducers 1975: Love Lock 1972: It All Started with a Bed 1972: Funny Girl 1971: The Sword 1971: The Merciful Sword 1970: Love Without End 1969: Purple Darts 1969: Tomorrow Is Another Day 1969: Devil Fighter 1968: The Wolf and the Angel 1968: The Fastest Sword 1968: Fallen Petals 1967: The Purple Shell 1966: Poison Rose 1966: Downhill They Ride 1965: Song of Orchid Island 1964: Lovers' Rock 1962: Typhoon 1960: The Golden Age 1959: On Mount Hehuan