Text/Sun Haifan
This movie is called "Strange Woman Yu Meiyan", released in 1928, because it is the story of the Republic of China generation "lusting women" Yu Meiyan, so the film caused a huge sensation at that time.
In the early 1920s, Chinese cinema entered its first booming period. In 1921, the first feature film of Chinese cinema, "Yan Ruisheng", was filmed, and it sold an unprecedented high-grossing position, and it did not "go offline" for half a year. After 93 years, director Jiang Wen made this story again, and the title of the film is "One Step Away". In addition to "Yan Ruisheng", "Orphan Saving Ancestors", "Red Pink Skull", "Sea Oath", "Burning Red Lotus Temple", "Empty Gulan", "Yujie Bingqing", "Tianya Song Girl" and this "Strange Woman Yu Meiyan" have all left their mark on the history of Chinese cinema in the 20s.
The story of Jiang Wen's "One Step Away" comes from "Yan Ruisheng"
The movie "Strange Woman Yu Meiyan" is full of stories inside and outside the scene. First of all, let's talk about the producer and actress of this film, Yang Naimei, the first female producer in China, and also a female film star who became popular throughout China in the 20s.
China's first female producer Yang Naimei
She came from a rich merchant family, but she was debauched, and there was no difference between inside and outside the screen. On the screen, she played a debauched female role such as a social flower in "Jade Pear Soul", "Empty Gulan", "Beauty Guan", and "La Traviata", and outside the screen, she was also innovative, bold, eclectic, and self-sufficient. This "Strange Woman Yu Meiyan" tells the true story of Yang Naimei's "girlfriend" Yu Meiyan.
At that time, Yang Naimei often made "headlines" in the press.
Yang Naimei and Yu Meiyan and two other women were called the "Four King Kongs" by the tabloids at that time, and their style of acting was completely incompatible with that era, so they often occupied the front page of the newspapers at that time, and the news and gossip about them were flying all over the place, compared with them at that time, many female movie stars with gossip news were eclipsed.
Yang Naimei life photos
After Yu Meiyan's death, "girlfriend" Yang Naimei wanted to make a movie for her, set up a company called "Naimei Film Company", there was no money to shoot movies, Yang Naimei actually found the Shandong warlord Zhang Zongchang from Shanghai alone, and after a few days, many people "imagined" the days. Shanghai's big stars visiting Shandong warlords naturally became a hot news spot at that time, and there was tabloid gossip that Yang Naimei had not gotten out of Zhang Zongchang's bed in the last three days after leaving Zhang Zongchang.
Warlord Zhang Zongchang
As a result, Yang Naimei was "sponsored" by the great warlord Zhang Zongchang, and according to the current words, he used "resources" to find funds and began to shoot the movie "Strange Woman Yu Meiyan" as China's first female producer. Yang Naimei found Shi Dongshan, who later directed "Eight Thousand Miles of Road Clouds and Moons", to direct this film, and he himself played the heroine.
Film master Shi Dongshan committed suicide in 1955.
However, just like some producers now, she got the money to buy a house and a car for herself, squandered it, and as a result, half of the film was filmed without money, and at the critical time, the rich businessman father who had no contact with her sent a sum of money to let her finish the film, the film effect was good after the release, and Yang Naimei also reached the peak of her life and career.
Yang Naimei in her later years
Later, due to the rise of sound films, Yang Naimei was too heavy to speak on the screen, and her husband's business failure made her worse and worse, and she was displaced by begging in the streets of Kowloon, Hong Kong, until the end of the 1950s, when she died of illness in Taipei.
Yang Naimei went to Taiwan
And Yang Naimei's "girlfriend", the story prototype of "Strange Woman Yu Meiyan", Yu Meiyan, is more ill-fated than Yang Naimei. Yu Meiyan is neither a movie star nor a writer celebrity, but her fame is no less than that of Yang Naimei. Yu Meiyan was an early Chinese woman influenced by Western thought, and like Yang Naimei, she was also a Cantonese, from a good family, and taught herself Mandarin and English, and her thinking and conversation were very different from those of women at that time.
Yu Meiyan photo
Yu Meiyan is a deviant person, she has been in prison at a young age, divorced, some people say that people in prison have a firm will, divorced people have strong feelings, so she is not afraid of heaven, the ground is not afraid, she is afraid of no man around. Until now, Yu Meiyan's behavior is still outside the social moral norms of China and even foreign countries, and it is not an exaggeration to say that she is a veritable "slut" and "lustful woman". Yu Meiyan is also the first "female writer" in China to write with her body, and she has compiled the entangled history of countless men and the love letters and love poems that have come and gone into a book, and produced a "Strange Book of the Republic of China" - "Modern Love Letter".
Yu Meiyan's "Modern Love Letter"
In the book, she claims to have slept with thousands of men in four years, including warlords, company bosses, business elites, "white-collar petty bourgeoisie," and arguably slept in China from top to bottom. Yu Meiyan used her body to "explore" the bottom line of social morality, and the result was unfathomable. Public opinion and tabloids have a "ecstatic" mentality, ostensibly criticizing her for this "faceless" behavior, but in fact expressing admiration and desire for her with overwhelming reports, which is also illustrated by the popularity of the movie "Strange Woman Yu Meiyan". In the end, Yu Meiyan did not become the victor of the "free spirit", she escaped into the empty door, and said in her suicide note that "in the next life, you may be a pure woman and get real freedom", in 1928, at the age of 28, Yu Meiyan committed suicide by throwing herself into the sea.
In the history of film, there are not many movies about prostitutes and lustful women, europe and the United States have "La Traviata", "Falling into the Country and The Sea Flower", "Daytime Beauty", "Prostitution Street", "Young Prostitute", "Female Addict", Asia has "Prostitution", "Cherry Blossom Chaos", "Wangxiang", Chinese has "Sex Worker", "Zhiyin", "Du Shiniang", "Liu Rulai", "Dong Xiaowan", "Painting the Soul" and so on.
The reason why the theme of prostitutes is favored by producers and directors is first of all because this kind of film can meet the audience's "voyeuristic psychology", coupled with the heroine's struggle between spirit and flesh is also very dramatic, and the choreographer is also challenging to shoot, but considering the censorship, many directors still want to expose the darkness of the old society, criticize the social system of cannibalism, and praise prostitutes for "not abandoning, not giving up" self-improvement and their feelings of upholding justice and "sacrificing their lives for the country" in the face of great right and wrong, and finally, A glorious image of a large number of "sex workers" appeared on the screen.
Zhang Yu played Xiao Fengxian, a prostitute who understands great righteousness, in the movie "Zhiyin"
And in Yu Meiyan and Yang Naimei, the two "sluts" and "desire women", it seems that it is difficult for us to find anything positive, so if Yang Naimei had not found Zhang Zongchang's "cultural industry fund", perhaps Yu Meiyan would never have appeared on the screen, from this point of view, Yu Meiyan is lucky, she relies on Yang Naimei to live forever on the screen.
However, if Jiang Wenmen remade "Strange Girl Yu Meiyan" today, there may still be a box office, because those who watched the hilarity are still there.