Antique Chinese Film Posters With Cantonese Film Star Ruan Lingyu

Shanghai Cinema Star Ruan Lingyu in Ancient Chinese Film Posters 1920-1935

Certainly one of the greatest movie idols of earlier Chinese cinema, one whose true talent was not recognized nor fully appreciated until long after her death. She rose to stardom in such early classics as "Three Modern Girls", and "The Goddess", and by the time she reached twenty, she was a major star in the burgeoning Shanghai cinema galaxy. Yet she was a small-town Cantonese girl who could never quite fit in to big-city society; she was even criticized by fans for her less than perfect command of Mandarin. As will happen sometimes when fame comes around too early, she paid a price far too dear. Her turbulent, unhappy love-life, as well as difficulties on and off the screen were constantly criticized by an unforgiving media, and it was believed that all the publicity she received led her to take her own life in 1935, at the very pinnacle of her young career. Tragically enough, she was only twenty-five years old at the time.