Why Wong Kar-wai called Fei Mu the only true film poet of China
In short: Fei Mu was a master of pre-Communist Chinese cinema whose delicate, atmospheric work was nearly erased by history. Though his masterpiece, Spring in a Small Town, is now celebrated as the greatest Chinese film ever made, his legacy spent decades in obscurity before a dramatic rediscovery in the 1980s.
Born in Shanghai in 1906, Fei Mu began his career as an assistant to film pioneer Hou Yao before directing his debut, Night in the City, in 1933. Throughout the 1930s, he became a central figure in the industry, balancing artistic ambition with the political currents of the era. His 1935 film Song of China, which championed traditional values, gained rare international exposure with a limited release in the United States, while his 1936 work Blood on Wolf Mountain served as a subtle, allegorical critique of the war with Japan.
Fei Mu’s reputation reached its zenith during the so-called Second Golden Age of Chinese cinema. In 1948, he directed the seminal love triangle drama Spring in a Small Town and China’s first color film, A Wedding in the Dream, which featured the legendary Beijing Opera performer Mei Lanfang. However, the political upheaval of 1949 forced Fei to flee to Hong Kong, where he co-founded the Longma Film Company. He died suddenly of a heart attack at his desk in 1951, leaving behind a body of work that would soon be dismissed by mainland authorities as ideologically suspect.
For decades, Fei’s films were largely forgotten or suppressed. It was not until the 1980s, following the reopening of the China Film Archive after the Cultural Revolution, that his work was systematically recovered. The restoration of the original negative of Spring in a Small Town allowed a new generation to appreciate his lyrical, poetic sensibility. Today, he is recognized not just as a director of costume dramas, but as a singular visionary whose influence was championed by modern masters like Wong Kar-wai.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Fei Mu
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