Yuan Muzhi

Yuan Muzhi (born Yuan Jialai ; 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. He is best known for his film Street Angel, which is regarded as a masterpiece of the Chinese left-wing movement.

Career 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), 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. 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. Yuan was also a delegate to the first National People's Congress and the third Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

However he was later persecuted and forced to resign in 1954. During the Cultural Revolution, he was exiled to the May 7th Cadre School in Danjiang, Hubei. In the spring of 1978, he fell ill and was unable to seek medical treatment due to political interference in the hospital. He died in Beijing on June 30 of the same year at the age of 69.

Selected filmography

Actor

Director