Xu Lai (; 1909 – 4 April 1973) was a Chinese film actress, socialite, and World War II
secret agent
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
. Known as the "Standard Beauty", she was active in the film industry for only three years, and quit acting after the suicide of the great star
Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu (born Ruan Fenggen; April 26, 1910 – March 8, 1935), also known by her English name Lily Yuen, was a Chinese silent film actress. One of the most prominent Chinese film stars of the 1930s, her exceptional acting ability and suicid ...
in 1935. Her first husband was
Li Jinhui
Li Jinhui (; 5 September 1891 – 15 February 1967 although some sources suggest he died 1968) was a Chinese composer and songwriter born in Xiangtan, Hunan, Qing China. He is often dubbed as the "Father of Chinese popular music".Aigomusic.A ...
, the "Father of Chinese pop music".
During the
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
, Xu and her second husband,
Lieutenant General
Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...
Tang Shengming, ostensibly served under the Japanese-controlled
Nanking puppet regime, but secretly worked as agents for the
Republic of China resistance based in
Chungking
Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a municipality in Southwest China. The official abbreviation of the city, "" (), was approved by the State Coun ...
.
With the Communist victory in the
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...
, Xu and Tang defected to the People's Republic of China, but were severely persecuted during the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
(1966–1976). Xu Lai died in prison in 1973; her husband survived and lived until 1987.
Early life
Xu Lai was born in 1909 to a poor family in Shanghai. Her original name was Xu Xiaomei () and she was also called Xu Jiefeng (). Due to poverty, she began working at a British-owned egg factory in
Zhabei
Zhabei, formerly romanized as Chapei, is a neighborhood and a former district of Shanghai with a land area of and a resident population of 847,300 as of 2013. It is the location of the Shanghai railway station, one of the main railway stations ...
at the age of 13, but was later able to attend school after her family fortunes improved.
In 1927, Xu attended the China Song and Dance School run by
Li Jinhui
Li Jinhui (; 5 September 1891 – 15 February 1967 although some sources suggest he died 1968) was a Chinese composer and songwriter born in Xiangtan, Hunan, Qing China. He is often dubbed as the "Father of Chinese popular music".Aigomusic.A ...
, who is now considered the "Father of Chinese pop music". She also joined Li's
Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe and toured many cities in China and Southeast Asia.
She married Li, who was 18 years her senior, in 1930, and gave birth to a daughter named Xiaofeng.
Film career and other activities
In 1932, Xu Lai was recruited by Zhou Jianyun, a cofounder of the Mingxing Film Company
Mingxing Film Company (), also known as the Star Motion Picture Company, was one of the largest production companies during the 1920s, and 1930s in the Republican era. Founded in Shanghai, the company lasted from 1922 until 1937 when it was close ...
, to join the studio. She became famous after starring in the 1933 silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...
''Remnants of Spring'' (), in which she appeared in probably the earliest female bath scene in the history of Chinese cinema
The cinema of China is one of three distinct historical threads of Chinese languages, Chinese-language cinema together with the cinema of Hong Kong and the cinema of Taiwan.
Cinema was introduced in China in 1896 in China, 1896 and the first C ...
.[ Later that year she starred in ''A Feather on Mount Tai'' (). In 1934, she starred in ]Cheng Bugao
Cheng Bugao (1898–20 June 1966) () was a prominent Chinese film director during the 1930s. Employed by the Mingxing Film Company, Cheng was responsible for several important "leftist" films in the period, including the ''Wild Torrents'' (1933) ...
's popular patriotic films ''Romance of Mount Hua'' () and ''Go Northwest'' ().[
Xu Lai, together with ]Wang Renmei
Wang Renmei (; December 1914 – 2 April 1987) was a famous Chinese actress and singer nicknamed the "Wildcat of Shanghai". She was mainly active during the 1930s, and her most notable film was the 1934 ''Song of the Fishermen'' (available onli ...
and Li Lili
Li Lili (; 2 June 1915 – 7 August 2005) was a Chinese film actress and singer. Her films '' Playthings'', '' The Great Road'' and ''Storm on the Border'' were blockbusters of the 1930s and 1940s.Elaine DuanTop 10 legendary Chinese women in th ...
, her former colleagues at the Bright Moon Troupe, were the earliest stars to portray the vibrant, wholesome, and sexy "country girl" prototype, which became one of the most popular figures in Chinese cinema, and later inherited by the cinema of Hong Kong
The cinema of Hong Kong ( zh, t=香港電影) is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China and the cinema of Taiwan. As a former British colony, Hong Kong had a greater degree of p ...
.
Xu became widely known as the "Standard Beauty", and a ceremony was held to crown her the "Beauty Queen of the Far East". The Shanghai Chinese Women's Association strongly disapproved of her "coronation". Among the objections raised was that she "shocked the public by exhibiting herself in the nude", referring to her bath scene.[
The suicide of actress ]Ruan Lingyu
Ruan Lingyu (born Ruan Fenggen; April 26, 1910 – March 8, 1935), also known by her English name Lily Yuen, was a Chinese silent film actress. One of the most prominent Chinese film stars of the 1930s, her exceptional acting ability and suicid ...
in 1935, which caused three other women to commit suicide during her long funeral procession, had a major impact on Xu Lai. She quit acting after finishing her last film, ''The Boatman's Daughter'' (), directed by Shen Xiling
Shen Xiling (1904 – 17 December 1940) was a Chinese film director.
Partial filmography
External links
Film directors from Zhejiang
1904 births
1940 deaths
Artists from Hangzhou
Chinese film directors
{{China-film- ...
.[ It was critically acclaimed and considered her best film.][
The sudden death of her daughter Xiaofeng, also in 1935, caused a breakdown of her marriage with Li Jinhui and the couple divorced in November of that year.] It was an acrimonious divorce and Li requested compensation for the investment he had made in training her.
Secret agent
In 1936, Xu Lai married Tang Shengming (), a Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
Lieutenant General from a prominent Hunan
Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi ...
ese family.[ Tang was a notorious playboy and a close friend of ]Dai Li
Lieutenant General Dai Li (Tai Li; ; May 28, 1897 – March 17, 1946) was a Chinese spymaster. His courtesy name was Yunong (雨農). Born Dai Chunfeng (Tai Chun-feng; 戴春風) in Bao'an, Jiangshan, Zhejiang province, he studied at the W ...
, chief of the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics
The National Bureau of Investigation and Statistics (Military Commission), (NBIS or BIS) (), commonly known as Juntong (), was the military intelligence agency of the Republic of China before 1946. It was devoted to intelligence gathering and co ...
(Juntong), the secret service
A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...
of the Republic of China. Xu's assistant Zhang Suzhen (), a Juntong secret agent, became Tang's concubine
Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive.
Concubi ...
, and Shanghai tabloids often reported salacious stories of the three sharing the same bed.[ Tang made sure that Xu Lai introduced Dai Li to the "movie queen" ]Hu Die
Hu Die (; 1907 or 1908 – April 23, 1989), also known by her English name Butterfly Wu, was a Chinese actress during the 1920s and 1930s. Like many artistes and writers, she was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.
Biography
Early ...
, who later became the spy chief's mistress.
A year after her wedding, the Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
erupted. The Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
attacked Shanghai in August 1937, and the national capital Nanking
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
in December. Tang's older brother, General Tang Shengzhi, was the chief commander of the doomed defense of Nanking, which resulted in the Nanking Massacre
The Nanjing Massacre (, ja, 南京大虐殺, Nankin Daigyakusatsu) or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanized as ''Nanking'') was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the ...
. Tang Shengming, meanwhile, was the deputy commander of Changsha
Changsha (; ; ; Changshanese pronunciation: (), Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is the Capital city, capital and the largest city of Hunan Province of China. Changsha is the 17th most populous city in China with a popul ...
and chief commander of Changde
Changde ( ) is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of Hunan province, People's Republic of China. In addition to the urban districts, Changde also administers the county-level city of Jinshi and six counties. Changde is adjacent to Dongt ...
, both in Hunan province.[
In 1940, Tang Shengming surrendered to the Japanese and was recruited to serve in the ]Reorganized National Government of China
The Wang Jingwei regime or the Wang Ching-wei regime is the common name of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China ( zh , t = 中華民國國民政府 , p = Zhōnghuá Mínguó Guómín Zhèngfǔ ), the government of the pup ...
(the Wang Jingwei
Wang Jingwei (4 May 1883 – 10 November 1944), born as Wang Zhaoming and widely known by his pen name Jingwei, was a Chinese politician. He was initially a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang, leading a government in Wuhan in oppositi ...
regime), a puppet government established by Japan in occupied Nanking.[ Tang was appointed the commander of public security of ]Jiangsu
Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its ca ...
province, while Xu was his socialite wife who became a close friend with the wives of Wang Jingwei, Chen Gongbo, and Zhou Fohai
Zhou Fohai (; Hepburn: ''Shū Futsukai''; May 29, 1897 – February 28, 1948), Chinese politician, and second-in-command of the Executive Yuan in Wang Jingwei's collaborationist Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China during th ...
, the top leaders of the puppet regime. They were widely condemned by the Chinese public as traitors, and Tang Shengzhi publicly renounced all relationship with his brother and sister-in-law.[
After the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, the Kuomintang government revealed that Tang Shengming and Xu Lai had been sent by Dai Li to serve as secret agents in the Wang Jingwei regime. The couple took great personal risks to obtain intelligence about Japanese spies and troop movements and pass it to the resistance. Xu Lai reportedly discovered the identity of a Japanese spy while playing mahjong with Zhou Fohai's wife, and personally delivered messages to Chinese agents in Shanghai in urgent situations.][
]
After 1949 and death
In 1949, as it was becoming clear that Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
's Communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
were winning the Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...
, Xu Lai moved her family from Shanghai to British Hong Kong, while Tang Shengming went to Changsha to join the surrender of Hunan Governor Cheng Qian
Cheng Qian (; 31 March 1882 – 5 April 1968) was a Chinese army officer and politician who held very important military and political positions in both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China.Wolfgang Bartke, ''Who was Who in the ...
to the Communists. His brother Tang Shengzhi also surrendered. In 1950, Tang Shengming was appointed deputy commander of 21st Group Army of the People's Liberation Army and fought battles against the Kuomintang troops in Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
and Guangxi provinces.[
In 1956, Tang was appointed a counsellor of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, and Xu Lai moved with her husband to Beijing.][
When the ]Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
started in 1966, Mao's wife Jiang Qing
Jiang Qing (19 March 191414 May 1991), also known as Madame Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary, actress, and major political figure during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). She was the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of ...
, who had been a minor actress in Shanghai during the 1930s, began persecuting many of her former colleagues who were familiar with her " bourgeois" past.[ Xu Lai and her husband were both imprisoned for unfounded criminal charges.] On 4 April 1973,[ Xu died in prison after years of torture and maltreatment, at the age of 64.][ Tang survived the tumultuous period, and lived until 1987.][
]
See also
*Shangguan Yunzhu
Shangguan Yunzhu (; 2 March 1920 – 23 November 1968) was a Chinese actress active from the 1940s to the 1960s. She was considered one of the most talented and versatile actresses in China, and was named one of the 100 best actors of the 100 ...
*Sun Weishi
Sun Weishi ( zh, s=孙维世; 30 November 1921 – 15 October 1968) was the first female director of modern spoken drama (''Huaju'') in Chinese history. Sun's father was killed by the Kuomintang (KMT) in 1927, and Sun was eventually adopted b ...
*Wang Ying (actress)
Wang Ying ; , Yu Zhihua; during incarceration, Prisoner No. 6742; March 8, 1913 – March 3, 1974) was a Chinese actress in the 1930s. She rose to be a star of plays and cinema. The most valuable Chinese painting was of her. She was the first C ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Xu, Lai
1909 births
1973 deaths
Chinese film actresses
20th-century Chinese actresses
People persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution
Chinese spies
Chinese people of World War II
Chinese people who died in prison custody
Actresses from Shanghai
Chinese silent film actresses