Love and Duty (1931 film)

Love and Duty is a 1931 Chinese silent film, directed by Bu Wancang and starring Ruan Lingyu and Jin Yan. Long considered lost, it was accidentally rediscovered in Uruguay in the 1990s, and almost immediately hailed as one of the greatest Chinese silent films. Like many Chinese silent films, it features both Chinese and English intertitles.

Love and Duty
Traditional Chinese戀愛與義務
Simplified Chinese恋爱与义务
Hanyu PinyinLiàn'ài yǔ yìwù
Directed byBu Wancang
Written byZhu Shilin
Based onLa symphonie des ombres
by S. Rosen Hoa
Produced byLi Minwei
StarringRuan Lingyu
Jin Yan
CinematographyHuang Shaofen
Production
companies
Release date
  • 1931 (1931)
Running time
151 minutes
CountryChina
LanguagesSilent film
Written Chinese and English intertitles

Ruan Lingyu portrays two different characters, and the split screen technology is used for scenes where both characters appear.[1]

Production history

Based on a novel by Polish expatriate Stéphanie Rosenthal[2] ("Ho Ro-se"), who had married a Chinese engineer, Love and Duty became one of the first films produced by the leftist United Photoplay Service.

The film was very popular for its day, in no small part due to the pairing of Ruan, who was already a darling of the Shanghai film industry, and Jin Yan, a Korean-born actor who was one of the major leading men in early Chinese cinema.

Plot

The film tells the story of Yang Naifan (Ruan Lingyu) who runs from her arranged marriage to be with her true love, Li Zuyi (Jin Yan). The film details the poverty she must endure for breaking with tradition.

Rediscovery

For many years the film was believed to be lost, until a complete print was discovered in Uruguay in the 1990s.[3] The rediscovered print was shipped over to Taiwan in 1993 and is now housed at the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute. Since its rediscovery, the film has made its rounds in film festivals and Chinese cinema retrospectives around the world. In 2014, Love and Duty underwent a 2K digital restoration under Italy's L'Immagine Ritrovata, after which it was screened at the Shanghai Film Festival that same year.

Remakes

Love and Duty has been remade twice, in 1938 and 1955. The first was from the wartime Shanghai "Orphan Island" studio Xinhua Film Company, again directed by Bu Wancang, with Jin Yan reprising his earlier role and Yuan Meiyun in the role originally created by Ruan Lingyu. The second remake was by the Hong Kong Shaw Brothers Studio. Both remakes were Mandarin dialect sound films.

See also

References
  1. Harris, Kristine (2013). "Ombres Chinoises: Split Screens and Parallel Lives in Love and Duty". In Rojas, Carlos; Chow, Eileen (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas. Oxford University Press. pp. 39–61. ISBN 978-0-19-976560-7.
  2. Eber, Irene; Hill, Joan (2017). "Luo Chen (1883–1970), a Jewish Author in China". Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues (31): 169–179. doi:10.2979/nashim.31.1.08. ISSN 0793-8934.
  3. Thomas Kampen (30 June 2004). "Film "Love and Duty"". Institute of Chinese Studies, University of Heidelberg. Archived from the original on 4 September 2007. Retrieved 9 April 2007.


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