Documentary focuses on artists that captured the hearts of previous generations and continue to inspire audiences and entertainers today, Yang Yang reports.

Actress Yu Lan, being interviewed in 2018 at 97, one of the film stars featured in the documentary Yanyuan (Once Upon a Time in Film). (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

The question was direct. The answer even more so. When documentary maker Pan Yilin was interviewing screen legend Yu Lan in 2018, he asked the then 97-year-old actress what her most fervent hope was. Yu responded calmly and with great dignity that she was quietly waiting for death.

Pan took five years, from 2017 to 2021, to make his first documentary Yanyuan (Once Upon a Time in Film), which is scheduled to hit screens on Saturday.

"That was how she saw death. Her eyes looked peaceful, as if for her, she had already spent her time in this world. Her peace and calmness, especially, moved me," says Pan, 49.

However, to keep to the main thrust of the film, Pan did not keep this part of the interviews with Yu. She died in 2020－before the documentary came out. She was one of 22 film stars who had been awarded the title of "people's actors and actresses of New China "by Premier Zhou Enlai in 1962.

Tian Hua, another actress featured, and a still of Tian in The White-Haired Girl (1950). (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Eight of the 22 artists are featured in the documentary－Xie Fang, Zhu Xijuan, Qin Yi, Wang Xiaotang, Tian Hua, Jin Di, Yu Yang and Yu Lan. They committed many classic characters to film, such as Yu Lan's Jiang Zhujun in Living Forever in Burning Flames (1965); Zhu's Wu Qionghua in The Red Detachment of Women (1961); Xie's Lin Daojing in Song of Youth (1959); Yu Yang's Xiao Xiang in Baofeng Zhouyu (The Tempest) (1961); Tian's Xi'er in The White-Haired Girl (1950), Wang's A Lan in Intrepid Hero (1958), Qin's Lin Jie in Nyulan Wuhao (Woman Basketball Player No 5) (1957) and Jin's Kong Shuzhen in Youth in Our Village (1959).

Three years after graduating from university, in 1996, Pan became the host of a TV program on the film channel of China Central Television. Liujin Suiyue (Golden Years) ran from 1996 to 2014 focusing on old Chinese films, so Pan interviewed many artists from yesteryear.

Tian Hua, another actress featured, and a still of Tian in The White-Haired Girl (1950). (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

In 2017, after a stint as a TV director, when Pan was considering making his first film, he naturally wanted to work on something that he was most familiar with and attached to.

"It's meaningful if I can present the faces of those film stars from 40 or 50 years ago on the big screen today," he says. "I want to show their professionalism and pure love for the art of acting."

After an 18-month struggle with investment, Pan interviewed nearly 100 artists aged 80 and above. He originally gave the documentary the name Chuxin (Original Aspiration).

(From left) Actresses Wang Xiaotang, famous for her role of A Lan in Intrepid Hero (1958); Qin Yi, who starred as Lin Jie in Nyulan Wuhao (Woman Basketball Player No 5)(1957); Xie Fang, famous for Lin Daojing in Song of Youth (1959); and Yu Lan, well-known as Jiang Zhujun in Living Forever in Burning Flames (1965). (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

In 2019, the film team decided to change the title to Yanyuan, shifting the focus onto the 22 film stars in the early 1960s, a vibrant period for the Chinese film industry.

"The works of these 22 artists have touched audiences for generations, and their film characters have become classics. Over the decades, they have still maintained their passion for film and are still role models as artists and people," he says.

However, as many of them have died, the documentary features just eight of them, in addition to other actors and actresses.

One particular touching moment of the documentary is when one of the interviewees Zhang Jianyou, an actor in The Battle of Triangle Hill, could not hold back his tears.

(From left) Actresses Tian Hua; Zhu Xijuan, who's famous for the role of Wu Qionghua in The Red Detachment of Women (1961); actor Yu Yang, who starred as Xiao Xiang in Baofeng Zhouyu (The Tempest) (1961); and actress Jin Di, who starred as Kong Shuzhen in Youth in Our Village (1959). (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

In April 1956, three years after the end of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-53), a cast of more than 100 people went to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to visit Triangle Hill in person for the making of a film about the ferocious battle. Before they reached the hill, the views were so good that people were all happy.

However, when they arrived at the battlefield, they were shocked to see not a single green tree in sight because in the 43 days from Oct 14 to Nov 25, 1952, shellfire had obliterated the landscape.

The film, screened on Dec 1,1956, was adapted from a script titled Twenty-four Days. The cast's military adviser was one of the three survivors of the 120-strong detachment of Chinese soldiers that fought on the hill for 24 days, Zhang said, when he stopped and tried to hold back his tears before the lens.

"Actually Zhang played a very small role in that movie with only a two-minute performance in total. Even so, he said, as an actor, he played his role not just with skill, but with his heart," Pan says. "He told me that playing in that movie is the most significant thing in his life of more than 80 years."

A poster for the documentary, Yanyuan (Once Upon a Time in Film) that features them. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Zhang was so excited when recalling the experience that, after the interview was done, he was still very emotional.

"These old artists are very simple, natural, kind and passionate," Pan says. "They love film and are very grateful to their audience. I just want to record their feelings and emotion faithfully."

For example, Tian Hua, who was born in 1928 and lost her mother at an early age, said in the documentary that she is a daughter of the Communist Party of China.

"She has believed that all her life. It's not something that I specifically highlight to enhance the theme of the film," he says.

Another poster for the documentary in which they feature. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

In 93 minutes, people can see the clips from more than 10 classic movies that include the 13 artists featured in the documentary. The clips, with vivid characters and scenes they created in their youth, will bring back their memories about the good old days.

"So, privately, it's a love letter that I devote to those artists that I have met in the last 25 years. In 2014, Liujin Suiyue was taken off the air, and I didn't have a chance to say goodbye to them. This is the official goodbye," Pan says.

Contact the writer at yangyangs@chinadaily.com.cn