He was one of the most prominent film directors and screenwriters in pre-Communist China, together with Shi Dongshan, Cai Chusheng, and Zheng Junli.

His patriotic play Put Down Your Whip was highly influential and performed countless times during the Japanese invasion of China.

During the war he also made a famous staging of the play Qu Yuan, and wrote one of the first Chinese books on film theory.

The actress Wang Ying even performed an English version of the play in the White House for President Roosevelt and his wife.

After the Japanese invaded China in 1937, Chen joined the resistance movement, serving as the leader of the fourth brigade of the Shanghai Salvation Drama Troupe, which performed numerous patriotic street plays including Put Down Your Whip.

The troupe fled Shanghai before it fell to the Japanese, traveling and performing for the next three years under harsh conditions through central and southwest China.

He wrote and directed the film Far Away Love, whose premiere in Shanghai's Huanghou Theatre on 18 January 1947 was considered a landmark event in postwar Chinese cinema.

But he worked mostly in administrative positions, serving as a member of the National People's Congress, and general manager of Tianma Film Studio from 1957 until 1966.

However, due to his insistence that the director, rather than government administrators, have artistic control, he was dismissed and the film was directed by his friend Shen Fu.

After being rehabilitated at the end of the period, Chen returned to work for the Shanghai Film Studio, where he was responsible for artistic quality.

[10] He and Chen Baichen worked together for three years to make the historical film Da Feng Ge, based on the Han dynasty palace intrigues of Empress Lü after the death of Emperor Gaozu.