Han Langen

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Han Langen ( Chinese  韩 兰 根 , Pinyin Hán Lán-gēn ; born March 29, 1909 in Shanghai , † January 27, 1982 ) was a Chinese actor and film director. During his thirty-year film career, he was best known for his comic roles and was nicknamed Skinny Monkey (瘦 猴子). He is one of the most distinctive faces in early Chinese cinema and has starred in at least 100 films.

biography

Han comes from a poor family in Shanghai. He dropped out of school at the age of 15. In 1926 his film career began in the martial arts films popular at the time. In 1932, Han went to the Lianhua (联华) film company . He appeared in several social-realistic films with Ruan Lingyu , Jin Yan , Wang Renmai and Li Lili in the early 1930s and loosened up the serious topic as a supporting character together with Zhang Zhizhi with a comical touch. Hans's most important films from this time include Tao hua qi xue ji ( The Peach Girl , 1931) by Bu Wancang , as well as Ye meigui ( Wild Rose , 1932), Xiao Wanyi ( Little Toys , 1933), Ti yu huang hou ( Queen of Sports , 1934) and Dalu ( The Big Road , 1935) by Sun Yu . Han Langen played a leading role in Cai Chusheng's Yu guang qu ( Song of the Fishermen , 1934). With Wang Renmai, he portrays the twins Xiao Mao and Xiao Hu, who are perishing due to the modern age, who fall into poverty and have to earn their living as a street singer after small-scale fishing has been pushed back by industrial companies.

After 1935, Han was mostly seen as a comedian couple with the corpulent Yin Xiucen . Because of their appearance, they were considered the "Laurel & Hardy of the East". Just like Stan Laurel , Han was the creative head of the duo and sometimes also directed. Lan Ping played the female lead in her film 王老五 ( The Bachelors , 1937), directed by Cai Chusheng , who later became known as Mao Zedong's fourth wife as Jiang Qing .

Even after the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, Han stayed in the city and appeared in comic roles in Japanese-Chinese films during the Second World War, for example in 1944 in Noroshi wa Shanghai ni agaru ( Signal Fires of Shanghai ). He made regular film appearances until 1952, when private film studios in China were nationalized. After that, he joined a theater group. He made one last film with Yin in 1957, but it was not distributed in theaters because of the anti-rightist movement in 1957/58.

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personal data
SURNAME Han, Lange
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 韩 兰 根 (Chinese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese actor and film director
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Shanghai
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 1982