Fei Mu (October 10, 1906 – January 31, 1951), also romanised as Fey Mou, was a
Chinese film director of the pre-Communist era. His ''
Spring in a Small Town'' (1948) was declared the greatest Chinese film ever made by the
Hong Kong Film Critics Society.
Biography
Fei Mu's
ancestral hometown is
Suzhou
Suzhou is a major prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu province, China. As part of the Yangtze Delta megalopolis, it is a major economic center and focal point of trade and commerce.
Founded in 514 BC, Suzhou rapidly grew in size by the ...
,
Jiangsu Province. He was born in
Shanghai
Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
, China in 1906. Before becoming a director, he worked as an assistant of the film pioneer
Hou Yao.
Known for his artistic style and costume dramas, Fei made his first film, ''
Night in the City'' (1933), produced by the
Lianhua Film Company), at the age of 27, and he was met with both critical and popular acclaim; the film is now
lost. Continuing to make films with Lianhua, Fei directed films throughout the 1930s and became a major talent in the industry, with films like ''
Blood on Wolf Mountain'' (1936) which is often seen as an allegory on the war with Japan, and ''
Song of China'' (1935), a glorification of traditional values that was part of the
New Life Movement. Later, ''Song of China'' became one of the few films that had a limited release in the United States.
Fei's legacy as one of China's greatest directors was sealed with ''
Spring in a Small Town'' (1948) about a love triangle in post-war China (it was later remade by
Tian Zhuangzhuang in 2002 as ''
Springtime in a Small Town''). Director
Wong Kar-wai called him the only film poet he knew in China. In 2005, ''Spring in a Small Town'' was declared the greatest Chinese film ever made by the
Hong Kong Film Critics Society. Fei remained active in this so-called "Second Golden Age" and also directed China's first color film ''
A Wedding in the Dream'' (1948), which incorporated Beijing Opera and starred
Mei Lanfang. Following the
Communist revolution in 1949, Fei Mu, along with many other artists and intellectuals fled to Hong Kong. There he founded
Longma Film Company (Dragon-Horse Films) with
Zhu Shilin and
Fei Luyi and produced (under the Longma name) Zhu Shilin's ''
The Flower Girl'' (1951).
Following his death from a heart attack in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
in 1951 while working at his desk, Fei Mu and his work temporarily fell into obscurity, as much of his filmography was forgotten or ignored on the mainland and rejected by leftists as indicative of rightist ideologies. It was not until the 1980s, when the
China Film Archive re-opened after being closed down during the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
, that Fei Mu's work found a new audience. Most significant was a new print made by the China Film Archive from the original negative of ''Spring in a Small Town''.
Filmography
Director
Screenwriter
Producer
See also
*
Lianhua Film Company
Notes
Further reading
*
*
External links
Chinese Film Classics: Fei Mu The scholarly website chinesefilmclassics.org contains information about Fei and English-subtitled versions of ''Song of China'' and ''Spring in a Small Town''
course module
*
Fei Muat the Chinese Movie Database
A biographical article on Fei Mu and the making of Spring in a Small TownFei Mu Documents, Suzhou Art Museum, 2018.10.20-2018.11.25 “诗人导演”费穆文献展亮相苏州美术馆
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fei, Mu
1906 births
1951 deaths
Film directors from Shanghai
Screenwriters from Shanghai
Chinese Civil War refugees
Chinese silent film directors
20th-century Chinese screenwriters
Chinese emigrants to British Hong Kong