Peng Xiaolian (; 26 June 1953 – 19 June 2019) was a Chinese film director, scriptwriter and author. A graduate of the 1982 class of the

Beijing Film Academy Beijing Film Academy (BFA; ) is a coeducational state-run higher education institution in Beijing, China. The film school is the largest institution specializing in the tertiary education for film and television production in Asia. The academy ...

, she was a member of the Fifth Generation, although her style differed from the other members of this group. She is known for her series of films about

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

, including '' Once Upon a Time in Shanghai'' (1998), which won the Best Picture Award of the

Huabiao Awards China Huabiao Film Awards (), also simply known as Huabiao Awards, is an annual awards ceremony for Chinese cinema. Named after the decorative Chinese winged columns ('' huabiaos''), The Huabiao Awards were first instituted in 1957 as the Ministr ...

; '' Shanghai Story'' (2004), which won four

Golden Rooster Awards The Golden Rooster Awards () are film awards given in mainland China. The awards were originally given annually, beginning in 1981. The name of the award came from the year of the Rooster in 1981. Award recipients receive a statuette in the shap ...

including Best Director and Best Picture; and ''

Shanghai Rumba ''Shanghai Rumba'' is a 2006 Chinese romance drama film written and directed by Peng Xiaolian, starring the real-life couple Yuan Quan and Xia Yu (actor), Xia Yu (before their marriage in 2009). Set in 1940s Shanghai, the story is loosely based on ...

'' (2006), based on the romance of the movie star couple Zhao Dan and Huang Zongying.

Early life

Peng was born on 26 June 1953 in

Chaling County Chaling County () is a county in Hunan Province, China; it is under the administration of Zhuzhou City. Located on the south eastern margin of the province, the county is bordered to the north by You County, to the east by Anren County, to the so ...

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 ...

, and grew up in

. She was the youngest daughter of (1910–1968) and his wife Zhu Weiming.Peng, Xiaolian. ''Their Times.'' Shanghai: Eastern China Normal University Press, 2010. As a young child she experienced the terror of political persecution of her father. Baishan was the Minister of Propaganda in Shanghai when he was arrested for his association with

Hu Feng Hu Feng (, November 2, 1902 – June 8, 1985) was a Chinese Marxist writer, poet and literary theorist. He was a prominent member of the League of Left-Wing Writers. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Hu Feng became a memb ...

, a literary critic and politician. Along with other associates of Hu, he was condemned as a core member of the "Hu Feng Counterrevolutionary Clique" and suffered in prison and labor camp. This family tragedy had a major influence on Xiaolian, who vividly depicts the terrifying memories in the 1987 novella "On My Back", the 1997 short story "To That Faraway Place", and in the 2009 documentary ''Storm under the Sun'' that she co-directed with Louisa Wei.Veg, Sebastian. ''Storm under the Sun'' in The China Quarterly, June (2009): 198-199. 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 ...

began in 1966, her mother began to suffer brutality from the

Red Guards Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...

. The ultimate terror of the family came in 1968 when her father was beaten to death. Even years later, Peng insisted on writing about the chaotic years and the aftermath in fictions like the novel ''Shanghai Story'', the novella "Holding up the Book I Read Everyday" and the novella "Childhood: Secrets of Four Seasons". Like millions of her generation, she was sent down to the countryside for "re-education" by peasants during the Cultural Revolution. Although she spent nine years in the countryside of

Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...

province, not many works of hers except for "Burning Connections" write about the experience.Peng, Xiaolian. ''On the Way Home''. Shanghai: Baihua Press, 2005. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Peng entered

in 1978 to study directing, together with

Li Shaohong Li Shaohong (born 7 July 1955) is a Chinese film and television director and producer. She is considered a member of the Fifth Generation movement, and China's top woman director. Her films have won multiple awards in China and abroad, includin ...

Chen Kaige Chen Kaige (; born 12 August 1952) is a Chinese film director and a leading figure of the fifth generation of Chinese cinema.Berry, Michael (2002). "Chen Kaige: Historical Revolution and Cinematic Rebellion" in Speaking in Images: Interviews wi ...

Tian Zhuangzhuang Tian Zhuangzhuang (; born April 1952 in Beijing) is a Chinese film director, producer and actor. Tian was born to an influential actor and actress in China. Following a short stint in the military, Tian began his artistic career first as an am ...

and others, who would later be known as China's Fifth Generation film directors.

Career

Directorial debut

Upon graduation from Beijing Film Academy in 1982, Peng was assigned to work at Shanghai Film Studio, where she first worked as an assistant director. Three years later, she was given a teenage film ''Me and My Classmates'' to direct. The film was a success and won the Best Children's Film Award of the 1987

. As a reward, she was a given a chance to direct a film that she had wanted to direct: ''Women's Story'' (1988). This film made her known to the world, not only by entering festivals like The Creteil Women's International Film Festival and Hawaii International Film Festival, but also praised for its strong feminine subjectivity and its portrayal of rural Chinese women.

Life in New York

In 1989, Peng won a script award for her script "Difficult Truth" at Rotterdam Film Festival, but could not make the film in China due to the tightening ideology. She thought about leaving China and the success of her first two films helped to win a Rockefeller scholarship. She enrolled in the MFA program in

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

and graduated in 1996. Although she did not complete a single film in New York, her experience in New York inspired many fictional works, including novellas “The Abingdon Square”, “Burning Connections”, “A Drop of Ram Shit” set in New York, “Exile’s Return” and “On the Way Home”—all collected in her novella collection titled ''On the Way Home''.

Directorial career

After returning to China in 1996, Peng co-wrote (with Guo Lingling) the script for Huang Shuqin's film ''My Daddy''. Together with Zhu Bin, she directed her first thriller, ''

The Dog Homicide ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'' (1996). In the following decade, she made a series of films about Shanghai. '' Once Upon a Time in Shanghai'' (1998), a historical film about the

Shanghai Campaign The Shanghai Campaign was a series of battles fought between the nationalists and the communists for the control of Shanghai, the largest city in China in the latter stage of the Chinese Civil War, and resulted in the city being taken over by ...

of 1949, won the Best Film Award of the

. '' Shanghai Women'' (2002) portrays contemporary life in the fast-changing city. '' Shanghai Story'' (2004), which explores the vicissitudes of life of a bourgeois family from the 1920s to the 1990s, won four

, including Best Director and Best Picture. ''

'' (2006) is based on the romance of the famous movie star couple Zhao Dan and Huang Zongying. These films made her known as a representative figure in presenting the culture of Shanghai. She also made a children's animation film, '' Keke's Magic Umbrella'' (2000). In 2009, Peng co-directed (with Louisa Wei) the documentary ''Storm Under the Sun'', an investigation of the Hu Feng affair which had implicated her father. Peng and Wei interviewed 26 people who had been denounced as "counterrevolutionaries" for their association with Hu Feng.

Later life and death

Peng was diagnosed with

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a r ...

in 2013. She underwent

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs ( chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemothe ...

and her health temporarily recovered. She began writing a book about her father titled ''Four Seasons of Childhood'', and planned to make it into a film. She also spent two years writing the book ''Editor Zhong Shuhe – A Documentary on Paper'', about the publisher Zhong Shuhe (). However, her health deteriorated again in November 2018 before she was able to finish either project. She died on 19 June 2019 in Shanghai, at age 66.

Selected filmography

As director

} (). Completed an unfinished documentary by Japanese director

Shinsuke Ogawa (25 June 1935 - 7 February 1992) was a Japanese documentary film director. Ogawa and Noriaki Tsuchimoto have been called the "two figures hattower over the landscape of Japanese documentary." Career Ogawa began his career at Iwanami Production ...

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References

External links

* *
Peng Xiaolian
at the Chinese Movie Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Peng, Xiaolian 1953 births 2019 deaths Film directors from Shanghai Beijing Film Academy alumni Chinese women film directors Chinese women screenwriters Asian Cultural Council grantees BAFTA winners (people) Screenwriters from Shanghai New York University alumni Chinese expatriates in the United States Chinese women novelists Film directors from Hunan Writers from Hunan People from Zhuzhou