Studies On Director He Feiguang's Anti-Japanese War Films (1937-1945)

In the Chinese film history, He Feiguang, as film director, has been forgotten and devalued for a long time. In the early 1930s, he entered the film industry as an actor in Shanghai. He Feiguang was skilled in acting the part of the villain and then became a hit at that time. During the Anti-Japanese War period came the summit of his film career. He made five Anti-Japanese War films, including Defending Our Home Village, The Light of East Asia, New Life, The Pride and The Passion and Blood Shed on Oriental Cherry. As a result, he became a director who made more Anti-Japanese War films than others. With a wide international view, good-natured humanistic emotion, excellent publicity strategy and unique aesthetic style, his works can mark a higher level of the Anti-Japanese War films and Anti-Japanese propaganda.He Feiguang is also a controversial director in the film history for his special identity. He was born in Taiwan in the Japanese colonial period, and then went to Japan for study. He hesitated between the KMT and the CPC at one time. All his experiences have made it difficult for the film history compilers to give him a final judgment. As a tool to construct the state ideology, the compilation paradigm of the Chinese film history tending towards China's revolutionary history leaves He Feiguang's identity and his experiences in the film industry in a narrow space of the construction of the national main body. So for a long time the record of his film career and the understanding of his film works have been in shadow.The emphasis of this research will be put on the peak period of his film career-the Anti-Japanese Period. The thesis involves several aspects-Sino-Japanese War history, the film propaganda characteristics, the recognition of He's identity, the political games in the filmmaking institutions and the aesthetic style of his films, etc. And based on the factors, this thesis researches into He's Anti-Japanese films, trying to explore and restore the historical truth ignored and buried in the past. Through studying the case of HeFeiguang, the thesis also revalues He's creation of the Anti-Japanese war films from a new historical view and it will do some supplements for the construction of the Anti-Japanese film history, even Chinese film history.