Zhu Shilin (1 September 1899 – 5 January 1967), born in Taicang, Jiangsu, was an important director and screenwriter of early Chinese cinema and a member of the second and third National Committees of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Fascinated by films as a young man working opposite a cinema, he began translating subtitles in 1922 and in 1923, recognised by Luo Mingyou, joined the North China Film Company as head of its translation department. Later disabled by illness, he still wrote such screenplays as Dream of the Old Capital and Love and Duty while bedridden, and in 1930 directed his first film, a short starring Ruan Lingyu; joining Luo's Lianhua studio, he rose to studio head. In 1942 he joined Zhang Shankun's Zhonghua company and directed nearly ten films, mostly family melodramas and warm romantic comedies. After the war, criticised over his part in the film Eternity, he came south to Hong Kong in 1946 with his apprentice Cen Fan and made films for Nan Yang and the Great China company before directing the historical epic Sorrows of the Forbidden City for Yonghua in 1948. He joined Longma in 1950, directing A Neighbour's Tale (1952), about tenants sharing partitioned rooms, and The Mid-Autumn Moon (1953). In 1954 he founded the Feng Huang (Phoenix) studio and wrote and directed its first production, and as the studio's chief director oversaw many of its realist, humane films. In 1957 he was added to the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He died in Hong Kong of a cerebral haemorrhage on 5 January 1967, aged 67.
Zhu carried the realist, humane tradition of Shanghai cinema to Hong Kong; his Longma and Phoenix films set a realist tone for 1950s Hong Kong cinema, turning from partitioned rooms to ordinary families and keeping the camera close to everyday life, an approach that shaped later migrant and local filmmakers.
Achievements
- 1930 · Directed his first film, a short starring Ruan Lingyu
- 1948 · Directed the historical epic Sorrows of the Forbidden City for Yonghua
- 1954 · Founded the Feng Huang (Phoenix) studio and wrote and directed its first production