Song of the Fishermen

Yu Guang Qu

China

1934

56 Min

Black and White

Mandarin

Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
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CAST Han Langen, Luo Peng, Shang Kwah-wu, Tang Xianxiu, Wang Renmei, Yuan Congmei

Synopsis

In a village near Shanghai a poor fisherman’s wife struggles with her twins—a son, Hou, and a daughter, Mao. After her husband’s death, she has become the wet nurse of He Ziying, son of the owner of many fishing boats. Ziying becomes friend and playmate to the twins. When the twins grow up they become fishermen like their father, while Ziying travels abroad to study new techniques that will modernize his father’s (later his own) fishing company. As the poor fishermen cannot compete against He’s industrialized form of organization, the twins emigrate to Shanghai with their mother and make their living singing songs on the street. One day Ziying meets Mao and gives her some money, but after being discovered in possession of such an unusually large sum, Mao and Hou are arrested on suspicion of theft. When released they learn that their mother, shocked and desperate after their arrest, accidentally caused a fire which killed her and their uncle. They also learn that Ziying’s father was completely ruined by his mistress and committed suicide. The three childhood friends meet again and decide to restart their fishing business together. Song of the Fishermen won the first international prize for a Chinese film at the 1935 Moscow Film Festival. —http://chinesecinema.ucsd.edu/film/Yuguangqu.html

Director

Cai Chusheng

Early career

Born in Shanghai to Cantonese parents, but raised in Chaoyang, Shantou, Guangdong, Cai Chusheng worked in low-level positions in several small studios during the 1920s, before eventually joining Mingxing Film Company as a director’s assistant to Zheng Zhengqiu, another Chaoyang-native. Cai later joined the Lianhua Film Company where he directed a handful of mainstream popular films including Spring in the South and Pink Dream (both 1932). He would not cement his reputation as a leading leftist filmmaker until after the Japanese attack in 1932, when Cai, like many of his colleagues, shifted towards increasingly progressive or leftist filmmaking. This shift can be seen in output after 1932, including the class-struggle dramas Dawn Over the Metropolis (1933), Song of the Fishermen (1934), and the proto-feminist New Women (1934), which starred Ruan Lingyu. Song of the Fishermen, for example, was a major box office success in Shanghai where it played for 87 days, and… read more

Early career

Born in Shanghai to Cantonese parents, but raised in Chaoyang, Shantou, Guangdong, Cai Chusheng worked in low-level positions in several small studios during the 1920s, before eventually joining Mingxing Film Company as a director’s assistant to Zheng Zhengqiu, another Chaoyang-native. Cai later joined the Lianhua Film Company where he directed a handful of mainstream popular films including Spring in the South and Pink Dream (both 1932). He would not cement his reputation as a leading leftist filmmaker until after the Japanese attack in 1932, when Cai, like many of his colleagues, shifted towards increasingly progressive or leftist filmmaking. This shift can be seen in output after 1932, including the class-struggle dramas Dawn Over the Metropolis (1933), Song of the Fishermen (1934), and the proto-feminist New Women (1934), which starred Ruan Lingyu. Song of the Fishermen, for example, was a major box office success in Shanghai where it played for 87 days, and it would also became the first Chinese film to win an international prize, doing so at the Moscow International Film Festival.

Hong Kong and wartime

During the war, Cai fled first to Hong Kong, where he helped launch Mandarin language cinema with Situ Huimin. In Hong Kong, Cai would also direct two films, including the anti-Japanese thriller, Orphan Island Paradise (1939). When Hong Kong too fell to the Japanese, Cai fled to Chongqing, China’s wartime capital, where he joined the government-run Nationalist Central Film Studio.

Post-war career

Cai’s post-war career saw him returning to Shanghai and becoming a leading member of the Lianhua Film Society (later incorporated as the Kunlun Film Company). His collaboration with Zheng Junli The Spring River Flows East (1947) also proved to be a major film and popular success in the brief “Second Golden Age” of Cinema that followed the end of the Second World War. Following the Communist revolution, Cai worked mainly in administrative tasks, though he did make one major post-1949 film, Waves on the Southern Shore (1963). As the Cultural Revolution began to gain momentum in the late 1960s, Cai Chusheng, like many artists and intellectuals, became the target of persecution, which led to his early death in 1968.

In Stanley Kwan’s 1992 biopic of Ruan Lingyu, Centre Stage, Cai Chusheng is portrayed by Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Ka Fai. —Wikipedia

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