Wen Yimin

Wen Yimin (1890 - 22 December 1978), born in Beijing to a Manchu family, was a film director and actor who worked in Shanghai, Hong Kong and later Taiwan, and one of the pioneers of China's early wuxia cinema. In 1925 he joined Shanghai's Youlian Film Company, where he directed and acted in Hero and Heroine, issued in five parts between 1927 and 1929 and regarded as the earliest wuxia films in China. In 1934 he became a director at Shanghai's Unique Film Productions, making works such as Broken Dream in the Dancing Hall (1934), Mother (1935) and Riches (1937), and he also directed a number of pictures for Unique's Hong Kong studio, where he was regarded as one of its leading directors and a forerunner of Shaw Brothers. Joining Yi Hwa in 1939, he directed Secret Lady (1939) and Qin Xianglian (1940) and acted in such films as a 1939 adaptation. From 1942 he worked for the Zhonglian and Huaying companies. After the war he came to Hong Kong, working as a director and actor for Great China and appearing in Yung Hwa's The Soul of China (1948) and later in many Great Wall productions. In 1957 he joined the Feng Huang Motion Picture Company, for which he directed several films, and in 1965 he moved to Taiwan, where he was a regular actor for the Central Motion Picture Corporation until his retirement in 1973. He died on 22 December 1978.