Sheng Si Hen (1947)
Directed by
Fei Mu
Also Known As:
Wedding in the Dream
Remorse at Death
Happiness Neither in Life Nor in Death
Runtime: 60 min
Country: China
Color: Color
Sound Mix: Unknown
IMDB link: None
Review: The interaction between traditional theatre and Chinese cinema
Well, this is Fei Mu's unique film experiment in Beijing opera and stage performance. It's the first Chinese color feature film, starring Mei Lanfang, the most famous Beijing opera artist in the world, his stage art is one of the three stage theory systems in the world along with Russian Stanislavski and German Brecht. Although the film color is a bit faded, and the sound is slurred, but it's still a very rare archival film, nearly be burnt during the Culture Revolution, it's very lucky we can see it today.
Mei Lanfang (1894-1961) came from a family involved in opera for generations and his acting was highly regarded while still a teenager. His specialty was playing female roles, in which he aspired to embody the ideal of femininity. He did not try to portray realistically female characters, and he also did not consider himself a female impersonator. Mei was involved in one of the first Chinese colour feature films, Sheng Si Hen/Wedding in the Dream/Remorse at Death (FEI Mu, 1947), which filmed a staged performance. Mei was a strong supporter of the Communist Party after 1949, and was officially popular until the Cultural Revolution. The role of Dieyi (Leslie CHEUNG Kwok-Wing) in Ba Wang Bie Ji/Farewell My Concubine (CHEN Kaige, 1993) is loosely based on Mei's life. Mei was married and had children, and his surviving family make it quite clear that there is no question of homosexuality throughout Mei's career.
In the late 1930s and 1940s, despite the fact that, for most studios, the priority was producing films of social realism and documentaries of the Anti-Japanese War, films of traditional theatre continued to be produced. Unlike previous filmed performances which took scenes of particular plays, films of traditional theatre in this period included some complete operas such as the Beijing opera Wu Han kills his wife (Zhan jingtang 1937) featuring the well-known actor Zhou Xinfang in the lead role, and the Shaoxing opera Xianglin's wife (Xianglin sao 1948). When Fei Mu, one of the well-known directors at the time, and his fellow filmmakers considered making colour films in 1947, their first thought went to colourful theatrical performances. The next year they made the first colour film, Eternal regret (Sheng si hen 1948), with Mei Lanfang in the lead role. As we have seen through this survey, filmmakers returned to traditional Chinese theatre at each new stage in the technological development of the Chinese cinema. The Western camera was the magic and the Eastern theatre was the show: by now the magic camera had completed the process of revealing the acting, the colour and the sound of the show.
The Worlds of Mei Lanfang
Mei Lanfang with S. Eisenstein
well, Mei LanFang is also good friend of those early soviet filmmasters like Sergei Eisenstein, Alexander Dovzhenko etc. and he even made a b/w stage film cooperated with Sergei Eisenstein, the master of montage. if you can find this legendary Eisenstein film, pleaseee share it! Here's a picture of this unknown film:
Fei.Mu,.Mei.Lanfang.-.Wedding.in.the.Dream.-.Remorse.at.Death.(1947).first.Chinese.color.feature-(auess).mpg 
Fei.Mu,.Mei.Lanfang.-.Wedding.in.the.Dream.-.Remorse.at.Death.(1947)-EN.srt (Could anyone please tell me how many finished or nearly finished sources in Song of China now? )
___click to enlarge the picture.
I want to see those movies as soon as possible.