Cai Chusheng, a native of Chaoyang, Guangdong. Born in Shanghai on January 12, 1906 (December 18, 1906), he returned to his hometown with his family, attended a private school, and engaged in field labor.
When Cai Chusheng was twelve, he went to a small shop in Shantou as an apprentice, and although he was very tired, he was still diligent and studious. During the May Thirtieth Movement in 1925, he participated in the Shantou Store Staff Union, where he served as a trade union propaganda and theatrical performance, and learned to write articles and paint.
Cai Chusheng was persecuted for engaging in trade union activities and sneaked to Shanghai in 1927. According to a friend, he worked as an extra actor in several film companies, as well as drama and publicity. In 1929, he entered the Shanghai Star Film Company and became an assistant director under Zheng Zhengqiu, concurrently serving as a set designer. He assisted Zheng Zhengqiu in the filming of films such as "Little Compatriots in the Battlefield" (1929), "Broken Qin Lou" (1930), "Peach Blossom Lake", "Red Tears Shadow" (1931) and other films, which gradually revealed his artistic talent in his work, which was valued and appreciated by Zheng Zhengqiu and attracted the attention of the film industry.
Cai left the Star Film Company in 1931 and joined the second studio of the Lianhua Film Company and officially served as a choreographer. From 1932 onwards, he filmed "Spring in the Southern Kingdom" and "Pink Dream". When filming "Pink Dream", the "128" War broke out, and the deep national crisis inspired him to switch to shooting anti-Japanese news films. In order to cooperate with the anti-Japanese democracy movement that was on the rise at that time, he cooperated with Shi Dongshan, Wang Cilong, Sun Yu, and other directors of the Lianhua Film Company, and quickly completed the "Difficulty of Going to the Country" reflecting the "128" War of Resistance.
After "Pink Dream" was screened in Shanghai, left-wing film critics gave enthusiastic and pertinent micro-comments and help. Nie Er, who later became Cai Chusheng's best comrade-in-arms, also hoped that he would soon embark on a correct path and stop dreaming of being an artist. After critical help, especially under the positive influence of the film group led by the Shanghai underground organization of the Communist Party of China, he quickly raised his awareness, and later, in an article entitled "In the Reception Room", he analyzed and criticized himself for recognizing that "Spring of the Southern Kingdom" and "Pink Dream" were "two blind creations" and sincerely expressed the direction of his future efforts, that is, "at the very least, to reflect the suffering of the lower classes." Since then, Cai's film creation has shifted from detaching from reality to reflecting reality.
On February 9, 1933, the "China Film Culture Association" was established in Shanghai, and Cai Chusheng was elected as an executive member. The association issued a declaration calling on the film industry to "organize cordially", "recognize the mistakes of the past", "explore the light of the future", carry out "the forward movement of film culture", and build a "new silver world". Cai Chusheng created "Morning of the Metropolis" in the same year, which was well received by the film industry and audiences, and was praised by Shanghai Liangyou Pictorial as one of The Great Works of Lianhua. It was the first important work in which he enthusiastically celebrated the working people after he transformed his creative thinking, and it was also the beginning of his entry into the ranks of the left-wing film movement.
In the late spring of 1934, Cai Chusheng ignored the persecution of progressive films by the Kuomintang and completed another year of progressive films, "Fisherman's Light Song", which won the praise of the vast number of audiences with its realistic themes, moving plots, popular techniques and exquisite criticism. On June 14, it won the honorary award at its premiere at the Shanghai Golden City Grand Theatre. This is the first film in which our country has received international honors.
Following "Fisherman's Song", Cai Chusheng successfully directed "New Woman" in 1935, which aroused strong resonance among young students.
In 1936, Cai wrote "The Lost Lamb", which reflected the suffering and life of the street children in the old society, and in the first half of 1937, he completed the "Wang Laowu" that accused the old society and exposed the sins of traitors. In his on-the-ground contact with street children, Cai Chusheng found that they had the intelligence, enthusiasm, rationality and bravery that children of "high society" did not have, thus strengthening his "determination to appeal for these unsuspecting people". Later, when writing the script of "Wang Lao Wu", he also went to the shantytown along the sewage river in the Haidapu Bridge to conduct in-depth experience, observation and understanding. This made him further deeply realize that only real social life is the only source of artistic creation, and only works that reflect real social life can give full play to the role of art.
In order to unite the patriotic forces of the film industry and strengthen the anti-Japanese national liberation movement. Cai Chusheng and Ouyang Ziqian initiated the establishment of the Shanghai Film Circle Salvation Association on January 27, 1936. They issued a manifesto calling on the film industry throughout the country to unite to form a united front for national salvation and to join the national liberation movement.
On July 11 of the same year, Cai participated in the "Declaration on Striving for Freedom of Performing Drama" jointly issued by more than 100 Shanghai literary, artistic, film, and theater workers, protesting against the arbitrary acts of the concession authorities in unreasonably prohibiting and sabotaging patriotic activities in China's film and theater circles. On July 28, 1937, the Shanghai Cultural Circles Salvation Association was established, and Cai was elected as a director of the association.
In August 1937, Cai Chusheng and Xia Yan compiled "The Dawn of North China" based on the stage play "Defending Lugou Bridge" and the self-written film script "Fight for Freedom". Later, due to the impact of the war situation, it could not be made into a film.
After the fall of Shanghai in November 1937, Cai Chusheng left Shanghai and moved south to Hong Kong. At that time, Cantonese films were popular in Hong Kong and Macao, and Cai and Situ Huimin and others produced the Cantonese film "Blood Splash baoshan City" for the War of Resistance, and then cooperated in the Cantonese film "Guerrilla March" for The Qiming Film Company. After the filming was completed in 1938, it was unreasonably banned by the Hong Kong and British authorities, and it was not until June 1941, after being cut and renamed "Zhengyi Song", that it met with the audience. At that time, the Chongqing China Film Studio established the Dadi Film Company in Hong Kong, and Cai joined the company and completed "Lonely Island Paradise" in September 1939. This film depicts the indomitable spirit of a group of patriotic young people fighting for life and death against traitor agents after the Shanghai concession area became an "isolated island". It was widely praised when it was screened in Chongqing, Hong Kong and Nanyang.
At the end of 1939, the Dadi Film Company was dissolved by the Kuomintang government. In June of the following year, the progressive film workers in Hong Kong formed the Xinsheng Film Company, and Cai Chusheng participated in the work of the "New Life" and directed "Ten Thousand Miles in the Future", which reflected the struggle of the Hong Kong workers and masses against the refusal to transport arms raw materials to the enemy, and was in Hong Kong in Hong Kong in 1941. In order to reflect the miserable life of the fishermen in the South China Sea under the iron hooves of the Japanese army, he wrote the script "South China Sea Storm" in which the fishermen in the South China Sea fought with the enemy for life and death, and prepared to shoot in Hong Kong. Later, due to the fall of Hong Kong, it was not filmed. After that, Cai Chusheng traveled from Hong Kong to Guilin, and the Kuomintang cultural department sent someone to woo him to Chongqing, but he refused the "invitation" of the Kuomintang. At the turn of the spring and summer of 1944, the Japanese army invaded the south, and Hengyang and Guilin told Cai to move from Guilin to Liuzhou. Later, Liuzhou was in a hurry and withdrew to Dushan, Guizhou. After several twists and turns, he went to Guiyang to live in the end. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Cai Chusheng returned to Shanghai to cooperate with Zheng Junli and began to create "A River of Spring Flowing East", which was completed in October 1947. "A River of Spring Water Flows Eastward" is divided into two episodes, "Eight Years of Chaos" and "Before and After Dawn", which is the representative work of the whole Chu Sheng. With its rich content and profound artistic achievements, the film has won the popularity of the wide audience at home and abroad, sensationalized the entire Chinese film queen, and was praised as "marking the way forward for domestic films, on January 11, 1948, Shanghai (Zhengyan Bao) published statistics, the film from October 1947 to January 1948 for more than three months, the scene was full, the total audience reached 712874 people, breaking the record of 84 consecutive days of "Huaiguang Qu" choreographed and directed by him in the 30s.
After completing "The River Spring Water Flows Eastward", Cai Chusheng wrote the script "Spring Dawn in the West Lake", and later due to the white terror of the Kuomintang reactionaries, he, together with other film dramatists, moved to Hong Kong again at the end of 1948, and the script creation was also shelved.
After the liberation of Peiping in May 1949, Cai attended the First Representative Conference of National Literary and Artistic Workers and the Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese people. Since then, Cai Chusheng has enthusiastically devoted himself to the film industry of building a new China. He has successively served as the director of the Film Bureau of the Central Film Bureau, the deputy director of the Film Bureau, the vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the chairman of the China Film Workers Association and the Chairman of the China Film Association, and was elected as a deputy to the First, Second and Third National People's Congresses. In 1958, Cai Chusheng joined the Communist Party of China. At the end of 195, Cai Chusheng went to the newly built Pearl River Film Studio in Guangzhou to sort out and adapt the original manuscript of "South China Sea Storm", and cooperated with Wang Weiyi and Chen Renyun to complete the task of adapting the script and the filming task of the previous episode, and named it "South China Sea Tide". Through the encounter of a fisherman's family, the film summarizes the struggle experience of the coastal fishermen in Guangdong from the era of the Great Revolution, through the War of Resistance Against Japan, the War of Liberation and until the era of socialist construction.
Cai Chusheng died in Beijing on July 15, 1968.