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Chiung Yao — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Early life and education

Chen Che was born in Chengdu, China, on 20 April 1938. She experienced an unstable childhood due to the Second Sino-Japanese War. Her father, Chen Chih-ping, came from a humble background in Hengyang, while her mother, Yuan Hsing-shu, belonged to an upper-class family with roots in Suzhou and Shanghai; her grandfather was the head of the Bank of Communications. Yuan fell in love with Chen Chih-ping, who was her Chinese teacher, and the two defied social norms and married. When Yuan Hsing-shu became pregnant, Chen Chih-ping, then only 20 years old, initially planned to have the pregnancy terminated. However, upon discovering she was carrying twins—a boy and a girl—he changed his mind and decided to raise the children. The girl was Chiung Yao. During the war, the family endured a turbulent life as refugees. To survive, they performed in plays and sold potatoes, while Chen Chih-ping and Yuan Hsing-shu also taught in various locations, including Guizhou and Sichuan.

With both parents being Chinese literature teachers, the literary atmosphere of her family instilled in her a love for literature from a young age. In 1947, she moved with her family to Shanghai, where she published her first short story, The Poor Little Qing, on the Ta Kung Pao. In 1949, her family relocated to Taipei, Taiwan. After arriving in Taiwan, her father became a Chinese literature professor at National Taiwan Normal University, while her mother worked as a Chinese literature teacher at Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo High School. Compared to many of her peers who grew up in post-war Taiwan's poverty, Chiung Yao enjoyed a relatively privileged upbringing. At the age of 14, she published a short story under the pen name Lü Gui. In 1954, she adopted the pen name Xin Ru and published another story.

Chiung Yao struggled academically as a child, often facing criticism from her parents. In her final year of high school, she fell in love with her Chinese literature teacher, Jiang Ren, who was single and much older than her. The two planned to marry after being admitted to university, but their relationship ended due to opposition from her parents. Ultimately, Chiung Yao did not pass the university entrance exams, and graduated from Taipei Municipal Second Girls' High School (now Taipei Municipal Zhongshan Girls High School).

In 1959, she married Ma Sen-ching, a graduate of the Foreign Languages Department at National Taiwan University. Ma worked at Taiwan Aluminium Corporation in Kaohsiung, where the couple settled after their wedding. In addition to his day job, Ma was a part-time writer. The couple had one son, Chen Chung-wei.

Film producer

Between 1964 and 1983, Chiung Yao's works were adapted into 50 films, leading to "Chiung Yao film" becoming a genre in and of itself. Chiung Yao's novels and their adaptations sparked a "Chiung Yao fever" in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In 1965, Taiwanese director Li Hsing adapted two stories from Chiung Yao's Six Dreams into films: Four Loves and The Silent Wife. These marked the beginning of cinematic adaptations of Chiung Yao's works. Four Loves was successful both critically and commercially, while The Silent Wife achieved even greater success, becoming a bestseller in Hong Kong. However, Chiung Yao was occasionally dissatisfied with Li Hsing's adaptations. For example, in The Silent Wife, Chiung Yao envisioned the heroine as a "child bride", but Li Hsing insisted on portraying her as a cousin, deviating from the original narrative.

Shaw Brothers Studio in Hong Kong purchased the film rights to her works. Among these, My Dream Boat became the second-highest-grossing Mandarin-language film in Hong Kong that year. After leaving Shaw Brothers, Hong Kong director Li Han-hsiang founded Grand Motion Pictures in Taiwan, where he extensively adapted Chiung Yao's novels for the screen. His film Many Enchanting Nights earned actress Chiang Ching the Golden Horse Award for Best Actress for her role as the protagonist.

In the mid-1970s, Li Hsing returned to Chiung Yao's works, adapting The Young Ones and The Heart has a Million Knots. These films boosted the popularity of actors Chen Chen and Charlie Chin, who starred in The Young Ones. The soundtrack also gained widespread recognition, with Teresa Teng's renditions of A Thousand Words and How Can I Leave You from the film becoming major hits. Brigitte Lin, who had failed her university entrance exams, was discovered by director Sung Tsun-Shou from the Outside the Window production team. This marked her entry into the entertainment industry. However, due to copyright disputes, the film was ultimately unable to be released in Taiwan.

Unsatisfied with Shaw Brothers' adaptation of The Purple Shell, Chiung Yao established Firebird Picture Company in 1966, producing Mist Over Dream Lake and Lucky Clover. However, due to poor box office performance, the company closed in 1971. In 1976, Ping Hsin-tao asked his wife Lin Wan-chen for a divorce. That same year, Chiung Yao co-founded Superstar Motion Picture to adapt her novels into films, ending her collaboration with Li Hsing in 1977.

In 1979, Jiang Ren, the inspiration for the male lead in Outside the Window, died, and Chiung Yao married Ping. Chiung Yao and her second husband Ping adapted many of her novels into television series and films, often serving as producers or screenwriters themselves. Film adaptations in the 1970s often featured Brigitte Lin, Joan Lin, Charlie Chin, and Chin Han, who were then collectively known as the "Two Lins and Two Chins".

At Superstar, Brigitte Lin became Chiung Yao's go-to actress, starring in many of Chiung Yao's films. Early works such as Cloud of Romance and The Love Affair of Rainbow were scripted by Chang Yung-hsiang, while later works, including Moonlight Serenade and Yesterday's Love, were penned by Chiung Yao herself. Cloud of Romance, featuring Brigitte Lin and co-stars Charlie Chin and Chin Han, was a major hit, with the title song sung by Fong Fei-fei gaining widespread popularity.

Chiung Yao films dominated prime slots during Lunar New Year and Youth Day. Songs were often performed by Fong Fei-fei, with music composed by Tso Hung-yuan. The films, set in dining rooms and cafes, were nicknamed "Three-Hall Films". However, their formulaic nature led to diminishing appeal. After the 1982 failure of Amid the Rolling Clouds, Chiung Yao announced her retirement from filmmaking.

Television producer

Chiung Yao stopped creating film adaptations in 1980, choosing instead to focus on television. From 1982 to 1985, Chiung Yao's writing began to address controversial societal issues, producing works such as Paradise on Fire. However, after 1985, she experienced a creative bottleneck and paused her writing until the 1990s. In 1985, Chiung Yao's novels began to be adapted into television dramas. The following year, Chiung Yao and her husband Ping Hsin-tao co-founded Yi Ren Communications. By 1990, four more adaptations were released within a single year. Most of these dramas aired during Taiwan's prime-time evening slots, drawing massive viewership.

After Taiwan's lifting of martial law, the society's growing openness and diversity of values led to the decline of the "fighting for love" trope in Chiung Yao's works. Consequently, her stories shifted to settings in late Qing and early Republican China, focusing on themes like class conflict and feudal restrictions rather than generational gaps or romantic disputes. Her works during this period emphasised "love above all" and featured intense melodrama. The female protagonists—dubbed "Chiung Yao Girls"—embodied the image of tragic beauty. While her narratives critiqued feudal patriarchal oppression, they simultaneously portrayed enduring hardship and framed marriage as the ultimate victory.

In 1987, following Taiwan's approval for citizens to visit relatives in China, Chiung Yao travelled there. After Taiwan lifted restrictions on filming in China in 1989, Chiung Yao led her production teams to China, making her the first Taiwanese producer to film on location there. From that point on, nearly all of her television dramas included scenes shot in China, with Chinese actors joining the casts. In the 1990s, her romance-focused dramas resonated with Taiwan's emotionally complex society, while in China, they gained popularity for their themes of freedom and liberation following years of social suppression. In Vietnam, Chiung Yao's works faced initial censorship for their depictions of extramarital affairs and love triangles but regained popularity after the government embraced reform and openness.

In 1998, My Fair Princess marked a significant departure from Chiung Yao's trademark melodramatic style, introducing a light-hearted and comedic tone. This series is "regarded as one of the most popular Chinese-language drama shows of all time". Following this success, Chiung Yao revisited and reimagined her earlier works, producing remakes of her earlier works. In 2013, she released an original drama, Flowers in Fog. The series incorporated South Korean influences and contemporary romantic elements to appeal to younger audiences. However, it received mixed reviews, with some viewers labelling it a "cringeworthy drama". Afterward, Chiung Yao gradually withdrew from the entertainment industry.