Circuits of mobility in Love and Duty

Abstract

When the 1931 Shanghai film Love and Duty was rediscovered in 1993, it garnered attention as a masterpiece of film melodrama and the earliest extant work starring Ruan Lingyu. Yet nearly a century after it was made, questions remain about how this silent film wound up among rare Chinese books and artifacts in Uruguay and eventually Taiwan. This article investigates the origins, production, circulation, and preservation of Love and Duty by examining the lives and work of crucial figures whose involvement has long been overlooked, including Madame S. Rosen-Hoa (a.k.a. Hua Luochen, Luo Chen, or Horose), Polish author of the source novel, and Li Shizeng, elder statesman of the Republic of China who included the film in the ‘Sino-International Library’ he established in Geneva during the 1930s before moving to Montevideo in 1950. I track their surprisingly parallel ‘circuits of mobility’ across writing, translation, film, and multiple continents, including their respective studies abroad, assorted engagements with Esperanto, cosmopolitanism, nationalist revolution, women’s liberation, and various activities in the May Fourth Movement and the League of Nations. Analyzing publications, films, interviews, and archival materials in eight languages, this research reveals unexpected intersections between politics, the arts, education, and business that shaped early Chinese cinema.