Cai Chusheng

Cai Chusheng was a Chinese film director of the pre-Communist era, and was the first Chinese director to win an international film award at the Moscow International Film Festival. Best known for his progressive output in the 1930s, Cai Chusheng was later severely persecuted and died during the Cultural Revolution. His ashes are kept at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing. Cai Chusheng was born in Shanghai to Cantonese parents, but raised in Chaoyang, Guangdong. He only had four years of formal education, and was home-schooled after he had spoken up for his class about the misbehavior of a teacher. While home-schooled, he studied Confucianism and practiced calligraphy and painting. Cai Chusheng initially 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). ¹ 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. ¹ 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 become the first Chinese film to win an international prize, doing so at the Moscow International Film Festival. 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 an anti-Japanese thriller. Cai was also a pioneer in making films in local dialects, and the first to make movies in Cantonese. He also made movies in Chaozhou dialect. When Hong Kong fell to the Japanese, Cai fled to Chongqing, China's wartime capital, where he joined the government-run Nationalist Central Film Studio. 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. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Cai continued to work in the film industry, serving as the vice president of the China Film Association and the director of the Beijing Film Studio. He also led delegations to international film festivals and made significant efforts in film education and popularization. He directed several films in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Waves on the South China Sea (1963), which won the Best Feature Film Award at the 3rd Hundred Flowers Awards. However, Cai's career and life were tragically cut short by the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966. He was denounced as a "rightist" and a "counter-revolutionary" by the Red Guards, who ransacked his home and confiscated his belongings. He was subjected to public humiliation and torture, and was forced to write self-criticisms. He suffered from severe physical and mental stress, and contracted lung cancer. He died on July 15, 1968, at the age of 62. His wife, actress Zhang Ruifang, and his three daughters were also persecuted during the same period. Cai Chusheng was one of the most influential and innovative filmmakers in Chinese cinema history. He was a pioneer in progressive and realistic filmmaking, and a master of social commentary and human drama. He created milestone films that reflected the conflicts of human nature and destiny, demonstrating a profound artistic vision and cultural awareness. His films have been widely praised and studied by critics and scholars, and have inspired generations of filmmakers and audiences. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1978, and received several honors and awards for his contributions to Chinese film art.