Ruan Lingyu

Ruan Lingyu
Chinese name	阮玲玉 (traditional)
Chinese name	阮玲玉 (simplified)
Birth name	Ruan Fenggen (阮鳳根)
Born	(1910-04-26)April 26, 1910 Shanghai, Jiangsu, China
Died	March 8, 1935(1935-03-08) (aged 24) Shanghai, China
Other name(s)	Lily Yuen Ruan Yuying (阮玉英)
Years active	1927–1935

Ruan Lingyu (April 26, 1910 – March 8, 1935) was a Chinese silent film actress. One of the most prominent Chinese film stars of the 1930s, her death at the age of 24 led her to become an icon of Chinese cinema.

Career

Ruan was born Ruan Fenggen in Shanghai in 1910 to a working-class family. Her father, a worker, died when she was young, and her mother brought her up working as a housemaid.

In 1926, to help make ends meet, Ruan signed up for the prominent Mingxing Film Company. She made her first film at the age 16. That film, A Married Couple in Name Only (掛名的夫妻/挂名的夫妻) was directed by Bu Wancang.^[1]

In 1928, she signed for Da Zhonghua Baihe Company (大中華百合公司/大中华百合公司), where she shot six films.^[2]

Ruan's first big break came in Spring Dream of an Old Capital (故都春夢 or Reminiscences of Beijing, 1930) which was a massive hit in China. It was Ruan's first major work after signing for the newly formed Lianhua Studio in 1930. In it she played a prostitute by the name of Yanyan.

Thereafter Ruan became Lianhua's major film star. Her most memorable works came after 1931, starting with the melodrama Love and Duty (directed by Bu Wancang). Ruan had by then gained popularity owing to a string of lead roles and in 1933 Ruan was voted second runner-up in a poll held by Star Daily (明星日報) for China's "movie queen" (Hu Die emerged the winner and Chen Yumei was first runner-up).^[3]

Beginning with Three Modern Women (三個摩登女性, 1932; dir: Bu Wancang), Ruan started collaborating with a group of talented leftist Chinese directors. In Little Toys (1933), a film by Sun Yu, Ruan played a long-suffering toy-maker. Her next film, The Goddess (1934; dir: Wu Yonggang), is often hailed as the pinnacle of Chinese silent cinema; Ruan sympathetically portrayed a prostitute bringing up a child. Later that year, Ruan made her penultimate film, New Women (directed by Cai Chusheng, where she played an educated Shanghainese woman forced to death by an unfeeling society.

A final film, National Customs, was released shortly after her death.

Private life and death

At the age of 16 Ruan became acquainted with Zhang Damin (张达民/張達民), whose family her mother was working for. Zhang was later driven out of his wealthy family due to his spendthrift ways and became a chronic gambler, supported by Ruan's salary. Unable to tolerate Zhang's gambling ways, Ruan split with him in 1933.^[4] Ruan began living with Tang Jishan, a tea tycoon. In 1935, Zhang filed a lawsuit asking for reparations from Ruan. The tabloids seized on this opportunity to probe into Ruan's private life and put her under intense pressure.^[5]

Following the completion of New Women, Ruan's life began to unravel. The film opened in Shanghai, February 1935. Cai Chusheng was under massive pressure from tabloid reporters, who were extremely hostile, owing to the scathing depiction of the Shanghai tabloids in the movie. Cai was forced to make extensive cuts to the film. Even after that, Ruan's private life was mercilessly seized upon by tabloids and her lawsuit with her first husband, Zhang Damin, became a source of vindictive coverage.

Faced with these public issues, as well as with intense private problems, Ruan poisoned herself with an overdose of barbiturates in Shanghai on March 8, 1935, at the age of 24. Her released death note apparently contained a line which says "Gossip is a fearful thing" (人言可畏), although recent researchers have doubted the note's authenticity (it appeared to be forged by Tang Jishan).^[5] Even China's preeminent intellectual, Lu Xun, was appalled at the details surrounding Ruan's death and wrote an essay entitled "Gossip is a Fearful Thing", denouncing the tabloids.^[6]

Recent researchers believe her deteriorating relationship with Tang Jishan may have contributed to Ruan's suicide. He is believed to have physically abused her on the night of her suicide.^[5] Her funeral procession was reportedly 3 miles (4.8 km) long, with three women committing suicide during the event.^[7]

Legacy

In 1992, Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan made a movie about her life, Center Stage, starring Maggie Cheung as Ruan Lingyu. Cheung won the Berlin Film Festival Best Actress for this role.^[8]

One of her earliest films, Love and Duty (1931), directed by Bu Wancang, was discovered in Uruguay in 1994, which led to a revival in Ruan's status as a Chinese film star.^[9]

In 2005, Jacklyn Wu Chien-lien played Ruan in a 30-episode Mainland TV serial on her life.^[10] That same year a biography, "Ruan Ling-Yu: The Goddess of Shanghai" by Richard J. Meyer, was released by the University Press of Hong Kong.

Filmography

20-year-old Ruan Lingyu in Love and Duty

• A Married Couple in Name Only (掛名的夫妻, 1927)
• Yang Xiao Zhen (楊小真, 1927)
• The Tablet of Blood and Tears (血淚碑, 1927)
• The Luoyang Bridge (蔡狀元建造洛陽橋, 1928)
• The White Cloud Pagoda (白雲塔, 1928)
• Zhen Zhu Guan (珍珠冠, 1929)
• Qing yu bao jian (情欲寶鑑, 1929)
• Jie hou gu hong (劫後孤鴻, 1929)
• A Hit to the Nine-Dragon Mountain (大破九龍山, 1929)
• Burning of the Nine-Dragon Mountain (火燒九龍山, 1929)
• Flower Screen (銀幕之花, 1929)
• Reminiscence of Peking (故都春梦, 1930)
• Suicide Contract (自殺合同, 1930)
• Wild Flowers (野草閒花, 1930)
• Love and Duty (戀愛與義務, 1931)
• A Spray of Plum Blossoms (一剪梅, 1931)
• Peach Blossom Weeps Tears of Blood (桃花泣血記, 1931)
• Yu Tang Chun (玉堂春, 1931)
• Another Dream of the Capital (續故都春夢, 1932)
• Three Modern Women (三个摩登女性, 1933)
• Night in the City (城市之夜, 1933)
• Little Toys (小玩意, 1933)
• Life (人生, 1934)
• Coming Home (歸來, 1934)
• Goodbye, Shanghai (再會吧，上海, 1934)
• A Sea of Fragrant Snow (香雪海, 1934)
• The Goddess (神女, 1934)
• New Women (新女性, 1934)
• National Customs (國風, 1935)

Bibliography

• Richard J. Meyer (2005). Ruan Ling-Yu: The Goddess of Shanghai. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 962-209-395-7. 

See also

• Cinema of China
• Jin Yan
• Zhou Xuan

References

External links

• Ruan Lingyu at the Internet Movie Database
• Ruan Lingyu at the Chinese Movie Database
• Ruan Lingyu, Queen in Silent Film Period