Chen Bo'er


Chen Bo'er was a Chinese actress, director, screenwriter, novelist, animator, educator and revolutionist who advocated the establishment of the People's Republic of China's first national film school. During her lifetime she appeared in no less than four films and had a starring role in China's first sound motion picture Plunder of Peach and Plum.

Biography

Chen was born Chen Shunhua in 1907 in Anbu, Chaozhou, Guangdong Province. She graduated from Shanghai Art University in 1929 and married classmate Ren Bosheng in 1931. Settled in Hong Kong, Chen moved back to Shanghai where she appeared in a number of anti-Japanese productions including a 1937 dramatization of the Defense of Sihang Warehouse and the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. After joining the Chinese Communist Party she traveled with her son to Yan'an to direct films with strong female leads that promoted Maoist principles in order to recruit woman to the party.
In 1947 Chen was sent North to oversea productions at North East Film Studio, here she wrote screenplays and created puppet animations which painted Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek as a stooge propping up American Imperialism. Chen who saw a continued future for animation decided to establish a permanent animation studio within the department and put animator Te Wei in charge. In the same year she married Yuan Muzhi before moving back to Shanghai a year later to establish a predecessor of the Beijing Film Academy.