Early life and career Fen was born
Shandong in 1900. An active child, she trained her agility by binding her feet before fetching water. In her youth, Fen trained as a
Peking opera singer under Niu Fenglan. She learned a variety of roles, both
martial and civil, and gained recognition for her ability to portray a woman who had experienced
foot binding. In the late 1910s, Fen joined the Gong Theatre, acting alongside Xiao Yang Yuelou and Zhou Xinfang. She also acted with the Tianchan Theatre, alongside Gai Jiaotian. With the Qianku Great World Theatre in
Shanghai, she portrayed the courtesan Wang Lianying in an opera about
her murder, culminating with a sequence in which the character's ghost confronts her killers at Senluo Temple. Other performances for which Fen gained recognition included
Yin Yang River,
Red Plum Pavilion,
Sizhou City, and
Daxi Huangzhuang. Fen starred in
Heroine Li Feifei () in 1925, one of China's earliest
wuxia films. Advertisements described her as "zooming across rooftops and jumping up walls". In this film, she portrayed a
knight-errant named Li Feifei who, through her actions, makes it possible for a couple to marry for love despite efforts to separate them. She has thus been identified variously as "the first warrior woman of Shanghai cinema" and the "first of the lady knights in the Chinese cinema."
Hong Kong After the end of the
Second Sino-Japanese War, Fen travelled to
Hong Kong. With the support of the banker Li Guoxiang, she put on Peking opera performances. The newspaper editor Jiang Ling (江陵) urged her to teach the opera, and though Fen was hesitant due to her limited understanding of
Cantonese, she soon formed the Fen Juhua Opera Troupe. This troupe was later formalized as the Spring and Autumn Drama School, with its first school building being constructed in the 1960s. Initially, Fen exclusively trained women, including
Connie Chan and
Josephine Siao. Around 1962, she began taking on male students, such as
John Lone,
Chin Ka-lok,
Lam Ching-ying, and
Fung Hak-on. Students studied the opera and martial arts, with drills including handstands against walls, splits, kicks, and leg-lifts. Punishment was collective, and included verbal reprimands and beatings with a
rattan cane. Fen appeared in several films, beginning with
General Chai and Lady Balsam (1953) and including
General Chai and Lady Balsam (1956) and
The Invincible Yeung Generals (1961). She starred in the film
The Capture of the Evil Demons in 1962. This film, an adaptation of
Sizhou City directed by
Wong Hok-sing, featured Fen as a warrior who ascends to godhood after defeating a water demon. It featured several of Fen's students in roles, including
Chan Ho-kau as the titular demon, as well as a sequence in which Fen performs acrobatics while carrying buckets of water. Fen died in Hong Kong in 1994. ==References==