Love and Duty
Traditional Chinese	戀愛與義務
Simplified Chinese	恋爱与义务
Hanyu Pinyin	Liàn'ài yǔ yìwù
Directed by	Bu Wancang
Written by	Zhu Shilin
Based on	La symphonie des ombres by S. Rosen Hoa
Produced by	Li Minwei
Starring	Ruan Lingyu Jin Yan
Cinematography	Huang Shaofen
Production companies	United Photoplay Service China Sun Motion Picture Co.
Release date	1931 (1931)
Running time	151 minutes
Country	China
Languages	Silent film Written Chinese and English intertitles

Love and Duty is a 1931 Chinese silent film, directed by Bu Wancang and starring Ruan Lingyu and Jin Yan. Long considered lost, it was accidentally rediscovered in Uruguay in the 1990s, and almost immediately hailed as one of the greatest Chinese silent films. Like many Chinese silent films, it features both Chinese and English intertitles.

Ruan Lingyu portrays two different characters, and the split screen technology is used for scenes where both characters appear.^[1]

Production history

Based on a novel by Polish expatriate Stéphanie Rosenthal^[2] ("Ho Ro-se"), who had married a Chinese engineer, Love and Duty became one of the first films produced by the leftist United Photoplay Service.

The film was very popular for its day, in no small part due to the pairing of Ruan, who was already a darling of the Shanghai film industry, and Jin Yan, a Korean-born actor who was one of the major leading men in early Chinese cinema.

Plot

The film tells the story of Yang Naifan (Ruan Lingyu) who runs from her arranged marriage to be with her true love, Li Zuyi (Jin Yan). The film details the poverty she must endure for breaking with tradition.

Rediscovery

For many years the film was believed to be lost, until a complete print was discovered in Uruguay in the 1990s.^[3] The rediscovered print was shipped over to Taiwan in 1993 and is now housed at the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute. Since its rediscovery, the film has made its rounds in film festivals and Chinese cinema retrospectives around the world. In 2014, Love and Duty underwent a 2K digital restoration under Italy's L'Immagine Ritrovata, after which it was screened at the Shanghai Film Festival that same year.

Remakes

Love and Duty has been remade twice, in 1938 and 1955. The first was from the wartime Shanghai "Orphan Island" studio Xinhua Film Company, again directed by Bu Wancang, with Jin Yan reprising his earlier role and Yuan Meiyun in the role originally created by Ruan Lingyu. The second remake was by the Hong Kong Shaw Brothers Studio. Both remakes were Mandarin dialect sound films.