Fei Mu, courtesy name Jinglu, was born in Shanghai on 10 October 1906 to a family from Wu County, Jiangsu. The household moved to Beiping in 1916, and after primary school he entered the Higher School of French Studies. In 1922 he met Zhu Shilin and helped launch the film magazine Hollywood with He Mengfu and Zong Weigeng. After graduating in 1924 he worked as chief accountant for a mining bureau, writing essays in his spare time and, under the pen name Jinglu, film criticism for Zhu Shilin's magazine Zhenguang. Moved to Tianjin in 1927, he abandoned his post in 1930 to become head of translation at the North China Film Company, subtitling foreign films. In 1931 he assisted Hou Yao on Forgotten Grudges in the Old Palace and began writing scripts. Returning to Shanghai in 1932, he became a director at Lianhua, making his debut with Night in the City (1933), followed by Life (1934) and Sea of Fragrant Snow (1934), both starring Ruan Lingyu. His The Wolf Hill Bloodshed (1936) is regarded as a key 'national-defence film'. He came to Hong Kong in 1938 but returned to Shanghai to produce Confucius (1940). After the Pacific War broke out on 8 December 1941 and Japanese troops entered the Shanghai concessions, he refused to join the puppet-run United Photoplay company and left the screen, turning to the stage with plays including Yang Guifei, Autumn Begonia, Six Chapters of a Floating Life and Red Dust. After the war he ran the Shanghai Experimental Film Studio and began, but never finished, Splendid Rivers and Mountains. In 1948 he completed Spring in a Small Town and, backed by the distributor Wu Xingzai, who set up the Huayi company for it, the Mei Lanfang colour opera film Remorse at Death, China's first colour film. Moving to Hong Kong in May 1949, he co-founded Dragon-Horse Films with Fei Luyi and Zhu Shilin and wrote the screenplay River of Love, which was never shot. He died of a heart attack on 30 January 1951. He had earlier proposed his 'atmosphere' theory of cinema, and Spring in a Small Town, famed for its long takes and mood, was voted first in the Hong Kong Film Awards' 2005 list of the 100 best Chinese-language films and was remade by Tian Zhuangzhuang in 2002. His daughter Fei Ming-yi acted in films early on and later became a noted singer.
Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town, with its long takes and poetic atmosphere, is seen as a forerunner of lyrical Chinese cinema and has often been ranked among the classics of Chinese-language film. His theory of 'air', advanced in the 1930s, argued for mood over plot. Moving to Hong Kong late in life he helped found Dragon-Horse Films, and his work has continued to influence later Chinese directors.
Achievements
- 1933 · Directed his debut, Night in the City, starring Ruan Lingyu.
- 1936 · Wrote and directed The Wolf Hill Bloodshed, regarded as a key 'national-defence film'.
- 1948 · Completed Spring in a Small Town and the colour opera film Life and Death, starring Mei Lanfang.