Li Lili is perhaps most famous for her roles in several films of the first Golden Age of Chinese cinema in the 1930s, especially those directed by Sun Yu (see below for a full filmography and links to reviews). Unlike many stars, she did not continue to make films in occupied Shanghai after the Japanese invaded in 1937 and we look here at two anti-Japanese films. The first, Orphan Island Paradise was made in Hong Kong in 1939 and the second – Storm in the Desert – in the then capital Chongqing and on location in Inner Mongolia in 1940.
Orphan Island is a reference to the foreign concessions in Shanghai which remained unoccupied by the Japanese from 1937 until full-scale war broke out in the Pacific in 1941. The film, directed by Cai Chusheng was made in Hong Kong but is set in occupied Shanghai.
It opens with a patriotic song while, on screen we see the contradictions arising from the occupation of Shanghai both destruction and poverty; resistance and hedonism.
Li Lili stars as a dancing girl (originally from the occupied northeast) who is a member of the Chinese resistance (all characters are unnamed). She is in love with the leader of the resistance unit, the dramatically caped young man [Lee Ching] – short of carrying a big sign saying “‘Í am a spy’ he could not be much more obvious. The young man patriotically resists her advances but as Lee Ching seems to be made of wood this is probably not as hard as it sounds.
The film is a story of resistance against the (unnamed) Japanese or, to be more accurate, their Chinese collaborators. But it is (at least in the form it exists today) rather disjointed and does not make the most of Lili’s presence. The film’s propaganda purpose is clear but previous films – such as Blood on Wolf Mountain and Lianhua Symphony – had achieved the same goal in a much more interesting manner. Presumably resources were limited but the film only occasionally shows director Cai’s style.
The unit are engaged in assassinating collaborators. Lili uses her role as a nightclub dancer (she is hired to dance with customers) to entice a group of men to a New Years Ball. In the one genuinely original scene in the film, the masked and suited unit infiltrate the raucous party and shoot numerous enemies with the sound of the shots being lost in the noise of the celebration.
The verteran Lili (she’s now 24), as usual, lights up the screen when she is present but this is all too rarely and there are too many diversions to secondary stories or comic scenes which distract from rather than advance the plot (such as it is). She does, however, get to sign a song about how she is missing her northern homeland.
The film quality is poor, some of the scenes appear to be in the wrong order and the sound is even worse (and out of synch).
Storm on the Border is set in Inner Mongolia (which was subject to Japanese infiltration at the time) and directed by Ying Yunwei (director of the original Eight Hundred Heroes (1938)). It is written by Yang Hansheng (also the writer on Eight Hundred Heroes). It is in relatively better condition than Orphan Island but not much better as a film.
Li Lili as Jinhua is a Mongolian herder and we find her at the start of the film singing to her sheep. A local man, Diluwa [Zhou Feng] is in love with her but as soon as a Han youth – Ding Shixiong [Chen Tianguo] – arrives in the area, the fickle Jinhua is showing him round her sheep enclosure leading to tension between the two men of different ethnicity.
It’s about a third of the way in before a Japanese spy appears and attempts to foment rebellion among the Mongolians. Jinhua’s older brother is kidnapped by the baddies and later Jinhua herself is also captured. The Mongolians unite with the Han to attack the spies and release the captives, joining also with Chinese soldiers forced to fight for the Japanese. Recalling Lili’s fate in Daybreak, Jinhua is shot by the Japanese spy just before he is killed by Ding. But she lives long enough to hear the soldiers sign triumphantly of their victory .
If the Japanese film industry was making films that portrayed a Greater Asia with subalterns in Shanghai (China Nights, 1940) and Taiwan (Sayon’s Bell, 1942) (both starring Li Xianglan/Ri Koran/Yoshiko Yamguichi) supporting the Japanese, Storm on the Border attempts to show a greater China where ethnic minorities are prepared to die for the Han cause.
In fact, it has a lot in common with Hiroshi Shimizu’s Sayon’s Bell (left) with popular female stars playing the role of ethnic minority women loyal to, and prepared to sacrifice their lives for, the nation (and speaking perfect Mandarin/Japanese).
Although there is some local music, the predominant soundtrack in Storm is classical music, including (in/appropriately) extracts from Bordin’s Prince Igor, an opera about the fight of Russian armies against an exotic Asian invader.
Li Lili did not have the acting range of somebody like Ruan Lingyu: most of her film characters are versions of herself. She is thus reliant on a director like Sun Yu to make the best use of her natural abilities. The role of a nightclub spy in Orphan Island should have suited her ideally but for whatever reasons (perhaps lack of resources) the film is a mess. To say that she is miscast in Storm would be an understatement. It is debatable whether she is less credible as a herder or a Mongolian but she is clearly neither.
The film is a strange mismatch of travelogue (there are scenes of camels, authentic Mongolian rituals and unconvincing shots of the characters erecting a ger), romance, musical, comedy and spy thriller. One would strongly suspect that this film, like the Japanese films mentioned, were intended mainly to convince the imperial audience that the subalterns loved them rather than to convince the latter to honour their seniors.
Storm is perhaps most interesting as one of the earliest Chinese films featuring minorities but it only shows that the Chinese film industry could produce a film about the Chinese periphery which was as exoticised as anything that Hollywood or the Japanese cinema of the time produced about China itself.
Lili went on to make at least two more films in Chongqing during the war but both appear to be only partially extant. She (somewhat mysteriously) went to the US in 1946 but later returned to the PRC and only appeared in one film (in a small role) and is credited as assistant director in another. She did lecture in the Beijing Film Academy for many years but suffered badly during the Cultural Revolution (her husband died).
| Year | Title | English Title | Comment |
| 1926 | 燕山俠隱 | A Hero Hidden in Yanshan Mountain | Lost |
| 1931 | 一剪梅 | A Spray of Plum Blossoms | Uncredited |
| 1931 | 銀漢雙星 | Two Stars of the Milky Way | Minor role |
| 1932 | 芭蕉葉上詩 | Poetry written on a Banana Leaf | Lost |
| 1932 | 火山情血 | Loving Blood of the Volcano | Lili’s first major role, directed by Sun Yu |
| 1933 | 天明 | Daybreak | Sun Yu |
| 1933 | 小玩意 | Little Toys | Sun Yu |
| 1934 | 體育皇后 | Queen of Sports | Sun Yu |
| 1934 | 大路 | The Big Road | Sun Yu |
| 1935 | 國風 | National Customs | |
| 1935 | 秋扇明燈 | An Abandoned Woman | Lost |
| 1936 | 到自然去 | Return to Nature | Lost |
| 1936 | 狼山喋血記 | Blood on Wolf Mountain | |
| 1937 | 聯華交響曲 | Lianhua Symphony | Segment 6: “Ghost” (鬼) |
| 1937 | 人海遺珠 | The Lost Pearl | |
| 1937 | 如此繁華 | So Busy/Such Luxury | |
| 1937 | 藝海風光 | Vistas of Art | |
| 1938 | 熱血忠魂 | Fight to the Last | Lost |
| 1939 | 孤島天堂 | Orphan Island Paradise | |
| 1940 | 塞上風雲 | Storm on the Border | |
| 1944 | 氣壯山河 | Undaunted Land | Only partially extant |
| 1944 | 血濺櫻花 | Blood on the Cherry Blossom | Only partially extant |
| 1953 | 智取華山 | Ingeniously Taking Mount Hua | Minor role |
| 1963 | 汾水长流 | The Water Flows Faraway | Assistant director |
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