Yuan Muzhi, born in 1909 in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, came from a wealthy family when he was young, studied to create drama in his early years, and later switched to film. Classic works include "Peach and Plum Robbery", "Children of the Storm", "Road Angel", "Eight Hundred Heroes" and so on. He successively served as the Northeast Film Studio and the director of the First Central Film Bureau of New China.
Because of the creation of many vivid stage art images with different identities, different ages and different personalities, Yuan Muzhi is known as the "stage thousand-faced person" in the theater industry. However, this title has a special origin.
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Stage Thousand Faces
Yuan Muzhi has loved watching movies since he was a child, and he still enjoys it after embarking on the path of drama. At that time, most of the images in the movie were Western performance masters in the 20s, and these vivid images aroused Yuan Muzhi's great interest. He began to think about how to draw the outer outlines of these stars on his face and wanted to take pictures, but he was so poor that he couldn't take pictures at all.
Once, he heard a friend talk about a photo studio shooting a window advertisement, so he rushed to the boss to discuss. He said he wanted to take 20 simulated makeup photos of foreign celebrities, but he couldn't afford to pay, so he suggested that after the boss's photos were taken, they became an album, and the front of the money sold belonged to the boss, and he didn't take anything. The owner of the photo studio also happened to be a movie fan, and the business was sluggish, and the brand had not yet been played, so he was interested and agreed.
▲ "Man with a Thousand Faces - Yuan Muzhi"
In this way, he spent 10 weeks to complete the makeup photos of 10 characters. The owner of the photo studio sold the 10 makeup photos, plus a photo of the makeup case and a cross-dressing photo, into a book. And the remaining 10 stars, the boss refused to shoot again.
After a customer bought the album in Shanghai, he processed it himself, printed 10 makeup photos on one, and wrote an article entitled "A Thousand Faces - Yuan Muzhi", which was published in the newspaper along with the photo. Since then, Yuan Muzhi's title of "Man with a Thousand Faces" has not gone away and has been widely circulated in the theater industry.
▲ "Road Angel" Zhao Dan, Zhou Xuan
Because of the "Peach and Plum Robbery" a blockbuster
At the beginning of the establishment of Dentsu Film Company, because there was no script, it fell into a situation where there was no drama to shoot, and the creation of film scripts became a top priority. At this time, everyone invariably thought of Yuan Muzhi, who had just transferred from drama to film. Yuan Muzhi quickly threw himself into the creation. He shut himself in his room and spent all day with a pen and a cigarette in his hand, writing without sleeping or eating.
▲ Stills of "Peach and Lee Robbery"
After several days of hard work, when Yuan Muzhi walked out of the room, the "Dentsu" movie script "Peach and Plum Robbery" was born. The main person in charge of Dentsu, Tian Han, Xia Yan and others, were very satisfied after reading it, and thought that the theme of the script was to the point, and if it could be made into a movie, it would definitely be welcomed. After discussion and revision, the script was quickly finalized.
After 9 months of shooting, the sample of "Peach and Plum Robbery" finally came out. After a trial, it was found that the story clues were not clear enough, the stage traces were too heavy, and the language and actions were unnatural, which made the whole, including investors, dissatisfied.
Yuan Muzhi and Chen Bo'er are even more humble in their courage to correct, carefully summarize the shortcomings in "Peach and Lee Robbery", redesign the performance, and actively cooperate with the revision and reshoot work. With everyone's efforts, the film was finally filmed, and after two months of reshoot and trimming, although there were still various flaws, the final shooting was completed.
On December 16, 1934, "Tao Li Robbery" premiered at the Shanghai Jincheng Cinema, which immediately caused a sensation throughout Shanghai. Yuan Muzhi and Chen Bo'er also became famous because of this.
The first person to sing the March of the Volunteers on screen
The great success of "Peach and Plum Robbery" made dentsu, which was once in danger, stand firm and greatly encouraged all dentsu staff. In 1935, Dentsu moved the factory to No. 405 Jingzhou Road, Hongkou, and began to prepare for the second film "Children of the Wind and Clouds".
"Children of the Storm" tells the story of the young poet Xin Baihua who put down his personal feelings after the "918" incident and bravely stepped onto the front line of the anti-Japanese national liberation struggle.
The film was originally a film script created by Tian Han, and later Tian Han was arrested, and Xia Yan took over to write the scene script. In order to shoot "Children of the Storm", Dentsu Company invited Xu Xingzhi as the director of the film. Xu Xingzhi also invited Wu Yinxian as a photographer. Yuan Muzhi cooperated with Wang Renmei and played the starring role in the film.
▲ Poster of the movie "Children of the Storm"
On May 25, 1935, "Children of the Storm" was very popular after its premiere at the Shanghai Jincheng Grand Theatre. Film critics praised Xin Baihua, played by Yuan Muzhi: "Mr. Yuan Muzhi's acting skills can maintain his consistent serious style, generally speaking, he is still the hardest and best one in this movie." ”
▲ "March of the Volunteers" was designated as the national anthem
In the history of Chinese cinema, the reason why "Children of the Storm" has been recorded in history is largely not because of the film itself, but because of the theme song of the film. The theme song "March of the Volunteer Army", written by Tian Han and composed by Nie Er, was first sung in "Children of the Storm", which caused a sensation. This song played a combat role in calling on and encouraging the sons and daughters of China to brave the enemy's artillery fire to plunge into the national liberation movement, thus becoming a famous anti-Japanese war song, and was determined as the national anthem of the People's Republic of China after the founding of New China.
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