2014 Essays

Pu Shunqing

Wei, S. Louisa

In histories of early Chinese cinema, Pu Shunqing is only mentioned in passing as China’s first female scriptwriter for Cupid’s Puppets (1925), a Great Wall Film Company film co-directed by her husband, Hou Yao, and Mei Xuechou. The film is noted as the first Chinese film narrated from a female perspective (Li and Hu 143). Great Wall was founded in Brooklyn, New York, by Chinese students studying in the U.S. and then relocated to Shanghai in 1923. Pu had worked for Great Wall as a scriptwriter and as an actress between 1924 and 1926 before she moved on to Minxin Film Company where she wrote her next three screenplays. Although her contributions are rarely discussed or even known, until the late 1920s, Pu was the only woman to be credited as a scriptwriter both in film prints and publicity ads.