Born Mou Meng-ying in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, in 1922 to a Zhongshan family, Wei Wei moved to Shanghai as a child and, inspired by anti-Japanese drama, abandoned her studies to join the Shanghai Art Theatre founded by Huang Zuolin and Fei Mu, taking the stage name Wei Wei. She was spotted by Wu Xingzai of Wenhua and made her screen debut as a prostitute in Huang's Night Inn (1947); encouraged by Fei Mu, she then took the female lead in his Spring in a Small Town (1948), rendering the inner turmoil of Zhou Yuwen with a delicacy matching the film's restrained style, and the film is now regarded as a classic. She moved south to Hong Kong with Fei Mu in 1947, appearing in Reunion (1948), and joined the Longma Film Company for Fei's self-written Jianghu Eren (1952), completing it with Zhu Shilin and Chai Man-siu after Fei's sudden death in 1951. She appeared in many Zhu Shilin films, including Fire and Water (1955) and A Year's Plan (1955), and worked chiefly for Feng Huang in the 1950s. After a long gap she returned to cameo roles from the mid-1990s, including Anna Magdalena (1998), and appeared in Jia Zhangke's documentary I Wish I Knew (2010). She died in Hong Kong on 2 November 2023, aged 101.
Wei Wei is remembered in Chinese film history for her Zhou Yuwen in Spring in a Small Town, now regarded as a classic. Moving from Shanghai to Hong Kong, she worked with Fei Mu, Zhu Shilin and the Feng Huang studio, becoming an important face of postwar Mandarin and left-leaning cinema in the city, and in later years she still made occasional cameos and attended film events.
Achievements
- 1947 · Made her screen debut as a prostitute in Huang Zuolin's Night Inn.
- 1948 · Starred as Zhou Yuwen in Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town.
- 2010 · Appeared in Jia Zhangke's documentary I Wish I Knew.