Wang Ping (王苹) was PRC’s first female film director and an ambassador for the communist movement’s empowering of gender equality, utilising film as a propaganda art form that would see Wang reach her zenith with 1965’s “The East is Red”.
王苹是中华人民共和国第一位女电影导演，也是共产主义运动赋予性别平等权力的大使，她利用电影作为一种宣传艺术形式，将看到王苹在1965年的《东方是红色》中达到顶峰。
Born in Nanjing in 1916, Wang’s interest in theatre and acting was ignited while working as a teacher in her hometown. In 1935, her decision to take on the lead role in the Chinese adaption of Norwegian playwright, Henrik Johan’s “A Doll’s House”, would place her fairly and squarely within the realms of both feminism and communism; the former on account of the play’s portrayal of the fate of a married woman in a male-dominated world and the latter for its clashing with the values of the New Life Movement that was a supporter of the Chinese Nationalist Party.
王于1916年出生于南京，在家乡当老师时，她对戏剧和表演产生了兴趣。 1935年，她决定在挪威剧作家Henrik Johan的《娃娃屋》的中国改编中担任主角，将她公平而直接地置于女权主义和共产主义的领域；前者是由于该剧描绘了男性主导世界中已婚妇女的命运，而後者则因其与支持中国国民党的新生活运动的价值观相沖突。
The latter was also the reason that Wang was subsequently sacked from her teaching post by the then nationalist authorities; she was told she could longer teach anywhere in Nanjing.
后者也是王随后被当时的民族主义当局解雇的原因；她被告知，她不能再在南京的任何地方教书了。
Wang would spend much of the remaining 1930s and 1940s continuing her work as an actress which also advanced the Communist Party’s cause. The close of the Second World War was to mark her destiny; the transition from stage to China’s relatively new world of moving pictures.
王将在20世纪30年代和40年代剩下的大部分时间里继续她作为演员的工作，这也推动了共产党的事业。 第二次世界大战的结束标志着她的命运；从舞台过渡到中国相对较新的移动电影世界。
Acting for the Shanghai-based, leftist Kunlun Film Company, Wang was a keen communist supporter, working underground for the Party prior to the establishment of PRC in 1949. Partially as a reward for her dedication, she was appointed as a film director by the August First Film Studio in 1951.
王在总部位于上海的左派昆仑电影公司代理，是一个狂热的共产主义支持者，在1949年中华人民共和国成立之前，他为党在地下工作。 1951年，她被八月第一电影制片厂任命为电影导演，部分作为对她奉献精神的奖励。
Nevertheless, Wang was by far not the only woman working as a filmmaker in a man’s world, just as today. However, for those early communists, gender equality formed one of their linchpins for economic reform. Remember Mao Zedong’s famous proclamation, “Women Hold Up Half the Sky”?
尽管如此，王远不是像今天一样，在男人的世界里唯一做电影制片人的女性。 然而，对于那些早期的共产主义者来说，性别平等是他们经济改革的支脚之一。 还记得毛泽东的著名宣言“女人举起半个天空”吗？
Much as in other fields in China, the following decades would see more and more female directors emerge in China, but again, in echoes of today, the industry would continue to see an overrepresentation by men.
与中国其他领域一样，在接下来的几十年里，越来越多的女性导演将在中国出现，但同样，在今天的回声中，该行业将继续看到男性的代表性过高。
From 1957-1962, Wang would make her first five feature films, before a familiar character of world renown would enter our narrative. The following few years were to see Wang rubbing shoulders with none other than the first premier of PRC himself, Zhou Enlai.
从1957年到1962年，王将拍摄她的前五部故事片，然后一个熟悉的世界知名人物进入我们的叙事。 在接下来的几年里，王与中华人民共和国第一任总理周恩来擦肩而过。
Whether Zhou had a soft spot for movies, or realised their potential for propaganda, or both, is unclear, but he nevertheless commissioned Wang to co-direct a film adaption of the popular play, “Sentinels under the Neon Lights”, in 1964. This was to be a seminal moment, as it was to lead to the two working hand in hand, as director and producer, on “The East is Red”, just a year later.
目前还不清楚周是否对电影有好感，还是意识到他们的宣传潜力，或者两者兼而有之，但他还是在1964年委托王共同执导了一部改编自流行剧《霓虹灯下的哨兵》的电影。 这将是一个开创性的时刻，就像一年后，两人作为导演和制片人在《东方是红色》中手拉手工作一样。
Zhou had originally pushed the idea for the stage show which, with its success, went on to pave the way for the movie version. Writing for SupChina, Tristan Shaw notes, “Unlike your typical propaganda flick, however, The East is Red has a high degree of artistic quality. There are senses of unity and energy to the film that make it strangely compelling”.
周最初推动了舞台表演的想法，随着舞台表演的成功，为电影版本铺平了道路。 Tristan Shaw在为SupChina撰稿时指出：“然而，与你典型的宣传片不同，《东方是红色》具有很高的艺术品质。 这部电影有一种团结和能量的感觉，使它变得奇怪地引人注目。”
No wonder the International Movie Database (IMDB) scores the song and dance epic a very respectable 7.4, calling it “Pre-Cultural Revolution propaganda at its most lavish”.
难怪国际电影数据库（IMDB）将这首歌和舞蹈史诗评为非常令人尊敬的7.4分，称其为“文化大革命前最奢侈的宣传”。
Wang passed away, aged 74, on 2 December, 1990.
王于1990年12月2日去世，享年74岁。