Li Ping-Qian

Directing

Li Ping-Qian

Born 1902-01-01 · Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

Li Pingqian (1902 – 18 November 1984), also known as Jack Pingqian Li, was a Chinese filmmaker who directed over 100 films in his career in mainland China and Hong Kong. He is probably best known for his works with actresses Gong Qiuxia and Xia Meng, who each starred in more than a dozen of his films. Moreover, his 1964 Huangmei opera film Three Charming Smiles starring Chen Sisi was a huge hit in China. Li was born in Hangzhou and was originally given the name Chunchou. He moved to Shangai in the 1920s to begin a career in filmmaking after leaving Hujiang University in 1919, where he studied sociology but did not graduate. In 1924, he co-founded Shenzhou Film Company with Wu Xuchang. The company went bankrupt in 1927 and Li joined Tianyi Film Company. He eventually moved on to Mingxing Film Company, until that was destroyed by Japanese bombardments during World War II. In the 1950s, Li moved to Hong Kong and became directing Cantonese films for companies such as Yonghua and Great Wall Film Company. Many of Li's earlier works are lost.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Rendezvous poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Rendezvous

1936

Youngsters of the Time poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Youngsters of the Time

1933

The Three Loves poster
8.0

Li's direction and Jin Yong's script always go hand-in-hand with each other. This time, their collaboration sparks again as the film seamlessly brings three short stories together through three different segments of flashbacks. Yin Zhaozong (Bao Fong) is an amour fou falling in love with a girl much younger than him. Instead, Yu Baicheng (Fu Che) is a playboy trapped by his three girlfriends. The bartender (Chiao Chuang), however, tells them how he and his wife are blessed by true love. The film not only displays Li's sensitivity to narrative structure but also his ability to cast the most suited actors for their respective roles, as such Mao Mei had a chance to demonstrate her dance talent for her debut in this movie.

The Three Loves

1956

The Imperial Maid Fei Zhen'e poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

The Imperial Maid Fei Zhen'e

1939

Mother and Son poster
7.0

After falling in love with Han Liren and giving birth to an "illegitimate child", Han Liren abandoned her and married a rich girl and cheated her out of the child. Huang Su then left the country, changed her name to Lin Luping, and became an actress. Sixteen years later, Huang Su was so popular that she was invited to perform in Shanghai. The young actor she worked with, Han Chen, was withdrawn and hated everyone, and everyone discriminated against him because he was an abandoned "illegitimate child". On stage, Han Chen played Lin Luping's son and was very successful. Later Lin Luping finds out that he turns out to be her biological son who was cheated away by Han Liren years ago. At this point, the theater owner Han Liren appears and wishes to get back together with Lin Luping, but is rejected by Lin Luping's mother and son.

Mother and Son

1947

Rendezvous poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Rendezvous

1960

A Dazzling Trap poster
7.0

HK horror film.

A Dazzling Trap

1961

No artwork available
8.0

An orphaned brother and sister depend on each other for survival. But the young man's hot temper gets him sent to prison. When he is released, with the help and support of his little sister, he tries desperately to go straight, but every attempt is thwarted by an unfeeling and uncaring society.

Embarrassing Sister

1926

No artwork available
NR

China's first song and dance film was "Poetry Written on the Banana Leaf" directed by Sun Yu and starring Wang Renmei in 1932. A battalion commander's lover, named Zhao Zhao, wrote a poem on a banana leaf in memory of the battalion commander. Just as she was about to mail it, she met people in the village holding the Autumn Tage Festival. Zhao Zhao decides to participate the festivities with her friends. Unexpectedly, the banana leaf was lost on the ground. Zhao Zhao rejects a man who tries to pursue her. Mad being rejected, the man picks up the lost banana leaf. He decides to write his own name to it, trying to deceive the battalion comrade that Zhao Zhao has cheated on him. The film is thought to be lost.

Poetry Written on the Banana Leaf

1932

Three Charming Smiles poster
7.5

Tang Bohu is smitten by the stunning beauty of Qiuxiang, the maid of Grand Tutor Hua, during his visit to a monastery in Suzhou. Stalking the maid, Tang's affections are finally reciprocated with three charming smiles. To approach the fair maid, Tang seeks work in the Grand Tutor residence as a study companion, and his talents win Hua's attention. As a frustrated suitor, he turns to his resourceful friend Zhu Zhishan for help.

Three Charming Smiles

1964

The Young Mistress' Fan poster
7.0

Lady Windermere's Fan, Oscar Wilde's play on moral values, is adapted for a setting in Shanghai. Young wife Meilin mistakenly believes her husband is having an affair with a social butterfly and decides to leave for a suitor. Her reputation, about to be ruined because of a misplaced fan, is saved by the social butterfly who turns out to be …Unlike typical Chinese scripts on parental love, the understated familial love in the original play is aligned with Li's preference for the undramatic. Motherly love is portrayed indirectly while emotions run strong yet subdued in the film. Poking fun at social culture of the times, this is Li's earliest extant feature film in a modern setting and a showcase of his modernistic and crisp directorial approach.

The Young Mistress' Fan

1939

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

笑聲淚痕

1943

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

笑聲淚痕

1943

No artwork available
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Pleasures of the Dance Hall

1931

A Strange Woman poster
NR

Not seen in Hong Kong for many years, A Strange Woman was Li Pingqian's first film at Great Wall Film Studio. Adapted from the play La Tosca by French playwright Victorien Sardou, opera star Xiao Xiangshui (Bai Guang) helps her lover, a revolutionary, to escape from warlords. She finesses with both the head of the secret service (Yan Jun) and her lover's wife, but things do not turn out as planned. Li changed his usual pace to encompass a more conventional and dramatic film plot. Bold and flirtatious in her role, Bai Guang is equally over the top in appearance as Yan Jun. The tension in winning the heroine over drives the plot more than the themes of patriotism and loyalty in love.

A Strange Woman

1950

Sheng li si bie poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Sheng li si bie

1941

Sheng li si bie poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Sheng li si bie

1941

Hua Mulan Joins the Army poster
6.5

A silent film based on the legend of Hua Mulan, released by Tianyi Film Company and directed by Li Pingqian. This silent film holds the distinction of being the first ever full-length feature film about Hua Mulan. Mulan is betrothed to a young man when war arrives and their wedding ceremony has to be put on hold. As her fiancé enlists in the army, so too does the filial Mulan, disguised as a man in place of her ailing father. These new plot twists lead to comedic moments when Mulan encounters her fiancé during training and he does not recognize her.

Hua Mulan Joins the Army

1927

Princess Iron Fan poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Princess Iron Fan

1927

The Merry Widow poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

The Merry Widow

1941

Laugh, Clown, Laugh poster
10.0

A sadder than sad story about a fun-loving optimist whose interest in comedy performance is despised by both his family and his wealthy future in-laws, Li’s tragic-comedy follows the 50-year-old father (Bao) as he maintains a dignified façade after losing his long-held accounting job in an occupied Tianjin in the 1940s.

Laugh, Clown, Laugh

1960

No artwork available
NR

Ling (Li Tziang), a young woman forced to work as a nightclub hostess to support her ailing parents and young siblings, hides the truth about her job from her family. She meets a sailor (Ping Fan) at the club, and the two quickly fall in love. However, just as he is about to propose, a drunken night causes him to miss their appointment, shattering their plans. Heartbroken, Ling faces another tragedy when her mother falls critically ill. Despite her efforts to raise money for treatment, her mother passes away. Her father, now aware of her real occupation, is ashamed yet sorrowful, unable to change Ling’s situation as the family remains burdened by debt and dependent on her income.

The Seaman and the Dancing Girl

Our Husband poster
8.0

Li's first directorial work in Hong Kong is adapted, by himself, from the Hollywood movie The Great Lie (1941) starring Bette Davis. When a husband disappears in an accident, the wife is dismayed by a social butterfly pregnant with her husband's child. To preserve the husband's blood line, the wife takes care of the expectant mother and raises the child. Featuring the two ravishing beauties Li Lihua and Sun Jinglu, Our Husband foregoes juicy feuds between the leads and delivers an allegorical message: parents should provide an ideal environment for the next generation. Addressing the rocky times in China, it is equally overt in its remonstration as Yung Hwa's earlier works, The Soul of China and Sorrows of the Forbidden City.

Our Husband

1949

Home poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Home

1941