page_title: Hou Yao
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Hou Yao / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Chinese film pioneer Pu Shunqing
context_page_description: Hou Yao was a pioneering Chinese film director, screenwriter, and film theorist. He wrote and directed many films including The Discarded Wife, Romance of the Western Chamber, the first Chinese film shown in Western countries, and Mulan Joins the Army. He wrote Techniques of Writing Shadowplay Scripts, the first theory book on Chinese filmmaking. He founded the Culture Film Company, which was merged into a predecessor of the Shaw Brothers Studio. He has been called the Chinese Henrik Ibsen for his advocacy for gender equality, which he shared with his wife Pu Shunqing.
  After the Empire of Japan invaded China in 1937, Hou Yao wrote and directed a series of patriotic films against Japanese aggression. In 1942, he was murdered by the Japanese during the Sook Ching massacre in Singapore.
context_section_description: Hou Yao is considered a pioneer of Chinese cinema, and his extant films and publications are critical for the study of early Chinese film history. A String of Pearls, a 1926 film he scripted, and Romance of the West Chamber were long thought to be lost, but rediscovered in the 1990s. A Poet from the Sea was rediscovered in Europe.
  Hou Yao's assistant Fei Mu later became one of China's most celebrated directors.
caption: Pu Shunqing, Hou's first wife
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