Wu Yonggang

Wu Yonggang
Wu Yonggang
Born	November 1, 1907; Shanghai, China
Died	December 18, 1982 (aged 75)
Occupation	Film director
Years active	1930s-1980s
Awards	Golden Rooster Awards – Best Picture; 1981 Evening Rain; ;
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	吳永剛
Simplified Chinese	吴永刚
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Wú Yǒnggāng

Wu Yonggang (November 1, 1907 – December 18, 1982) was a prominent Chinese film director during the 1930s. Today Wu is best known for his directorial debut, The Goddess. Wu had a long career with the Lianhua Film Company in the 1930s, in Chongqing during the war, and in the mainland after the 1949 communist revolution.^[1]

Biography edit

Wu Yonggang was born in Shanghai in 1907, but was considered a native of his ancestral home Wu County, Jiangsu in Chinese convention.^[2] Wu Yonggang was one of the major leftist film directors of pre-Communist China. For the early part of his career, Wu was a set designer with Dazhonghua Baihe, before transferring to the Shaw Brothers' Tianyi Film Company.^[3] He was eventually noticed by Shi Dongshan at the newly formed Lianhua Film Company.^[1] His first film from the director's chair, 1934's The Goddess (under contract with Lianhua), earned both him and the film's star, Ruan Lingyu, rave reviews. A prolific director, Wu continued to make films well into the 1970s until his retirement shortly before his death including Evening Rain (co-directed with Wu Yigong) which won Best Picture at the first annual Golden Rooster Awards.

Acclaimed director Chen Kaige referred to Wu Yonggang as one of his most admired directors, and named The Goddess as his favorite film of the 1930s.^[4]

Selected filmography edit

Year	English Title	Chinese Title	Notes
1934	The Goddess	神女
1935	Little Angel	小天使
1936	The Desert Island	浪淘沙
1936	The Pioneers	壮志凌云	Also known as Soaring Aspirations
1938	Rouge Tears	胭脂泪	Wu's remake of his own debut The Goddess for the Xinhua Film Company
1946	Loyal Family	忠义之家
1947	Waiting for Spring	迎春曲
1947	Decision of a Lifetime	终生大事
1950	The Far Away Village	遥远的乡村
1952	Hasen and Jiamila	哈森与加米拉
1956	Qiu Meets the Goddess of Flowers	秋翁遇仙记
1958	Lin Chong	林冲
1980	Evening Rain	巴山夜雨	Co-directed with Wu Yigong

Notes edit

^ ^a ^b "Chinese Cinema". UCSD Chinese Cinema Web-based Learning Center. Retrieved 2008-01-02.
^ Wu Yonggang 2005-07-02
^ Zhang Yingjin, "Prostitution and Urban Imagination" in Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943, ed. Yingjin Zhang (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 167.
^ "The Buffalo Film Series- Wu Yonggang-The Goddess/Shen Nu" (PDF). The University at Buffalo. 2006-01-24. Retrieved 2007-05-03.

External links edit

A brief biography of Wu Yonggang
Wu Yonggang at IMDb
Wu Yonggang at the Chinese Movie Database

[UCSD-1] "Chinese Cinema". UCSD Chinese Cinema Web-based Learning Center. Retrieved 2008-01-02.

[2] Wu Yonggang 2005-07-02

[3] Zhang Yingjin, "Prostitution and Urban Imagination" in Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943, ed. Yingjin Zhang (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 167.

[4] "The Buffalo Film Series- Wu Yonggang-The Goddess/Shen Nu" (PDF). The University at Buffalo. 2006-01-24. Retrieved 2007-05-03.

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