Zhao Dan is a talented and outstanding film artist, who ranks first among Chinese film stars in the influence and historical status of the Chinese film industry for a hundred years, and is a milestone figure that no one has been able to match and no one has shaken so far. From the first film "Pipa Spring Grudge" in the 1930s to the last film "Eternal Life in the Fire" filmed before his death in the 1960s, he participated in a total of 26 films, and participated in the screenwriting and directing of several film works after liberation. He was a diligent and versatile author of the book "Screen Image Creation" and left many paintings.
Zhao Dan is not a film actor from a science class, but he is talented and intelligent, and his artistic interest stems from the influence of the environment when he was young. Zhao Dan was born on June 27, 1915 in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. His father Zhao Zi was the battalion commander of the Beiyang warlords, and his mother, Huang Xiuzhi, was a famous Yangzhou beauty at that time. It should be said that his family conditions are very good. When he was two years old, he moved to Nantong with his parents. In 1928, at the age of 13, his Zhao Zichao funded and co-owned a film theater called "New New Grand Theater", which was designed by the famous architect Sun Zhisha. At that time, it was very profitable to open a film theater, and it was very tempting to act in both movies and plays. As the little young master of the shareholder's family, Zhao Dan naturally became a "free regular" in this theater. At this time, the social environment is also the transition period of film from silent silent film to sound, film technology and film performance art from low to high, from simple to complex. It is precisely because of his talent and intelligence and the influence of the environment that Zhao Dan, who studied at Chongjing Middle School (now the Experimental Middle School), and his friends Gu Yi and Qian Qianli organized a "small drama club" and often performed in the New New Grand Theater. It can also be said that the famous film artists in the Chinese film industry, such as Zhao Dan, Gu Jie, Zhu Jinming and Qian Qianli, have gone from this new grand theater to the whole country.
We see Zhao Dan's sprinkling of ink and his Chinese paintings, which are also the foundation he laid when he was young. In 1931, after graduating from middle school, Zhao Dan was admitted to a generation of art masters Liu Haisu founded the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts to study Chinese painting, specializing in landscapes, under the tutelage of Huang Binhong and Pan Tianshou. Liu Haisu, Huang Binhong, and Pan Tianshou are all top and well-known big figures in China's art circles in modern and modern times. The students who came out from the hands of these masters had great painting skills! Some of the older generation of film talents also started from studying Chinese painting, such as Ling Zifeng, Li Jingbo, Lan Ma, etc., but they are not the same teacher. Film art and painting art are closely linked, and learning to paint will be of great benefit to Zhao Dan's future film creation.
Zhao Dan is a lively person, during his study at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, he did not abandon the original drama club performance, he participated in the American Theater Troupe, Xindi Drama Society and Tuosheng Drama Society and other activities, and actively participated in the progressive activities of the "Left Wing Drama Federation" under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, changing his original name to "Zhao Dan". In 1932, Li Pingqian, a famous director of the star film company at the time, fell in love with Zhao Dan's performing arts talent and arranged for him to play a role in the silent film "Pipa Spring Complaint". Since then, Zhao Dan has officially stepped into a film art career.
Compared with his peers, Zhao Dan's film art works are not the most, but they are the most contributed. The early works "Road Angel" to the later "Lin Zexu" and "Eternal Life in the Fire" and so on are textbook-level classic immortal works. And his artistic creation path is so arduous and bumpy, including his marriage and family. In his 65 years of life, from 1932 to his death in 1980, 48 years of film art career, it can be said that he was born in a chaotic world, and his fate was bumpy and frustrating. He was imprisoned twice, squatted in prison for 10 years, and had no drama to film for the last 15 years of his life.
At the end of 1979, Japan invited Zhao Dan and Kurihara Komaki to co-star in the Sino-Japanese co-production film "A Game of Chess That Has Not Been Played", and Zhao Dan accepted it without hesitation. From the video materials left behind, it can be seen that Zhao Dan at that time was radiant and enthusiastic to receive the famous Japanese movie star Kurihara Komaki. At that time, "Popular Film" also published pictures and messages. However, by this time his life had quietly come to an end, and he was suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer. The supreme leader of the country visited and cared for him in the hospital, which is the only honor for all actors in the country! At the hospital, he told his daughter Zhao Qing: "How I wish I had fallen in front of the camera after the last shot." He had a stomach full of words to say, and wrote his last article dictated the laws of literature and art in a critical condition. Ba Jin wrote: "Zhao Dan said what some of us have in mind..." Two days after the article was published, Zhao Dan died at the age of 65.
Zhao Dan's film art is fixed in "It's an Unfinished Chess Game"...