The head of the Manchukuo film industry, General Masahiko Amakasu, decided she was the star he was looking for: a beautiful actress fluent in both Mandarin and Japanese, who could pass as Chinese and who had an excellent singing voice.

They would meet again after the war, at which time Kenichiro attempted to rekindle the relationship, but by then, Li was already involved with the artist Isamu Noguchi.

A key turning point in the film has the young Chinese woman being slapped by the Japanese man, but instead of hatred, she reacts with gratitude.

[6] After the war, one of her classic songs, "Suzhou Serenade [ja; zh]" (蘇州夜曲), was banned in China due to its association with this film.

A few years later, when confronted by angry Chinese reporters in Shanghai, Li apologized and cited as pretext her inexperienced youth at the time of filmmaking, choosing not to reveal her Japanese identity.

Other noteworthy hits include "Evening Primrose / Fragrance of the Night" (夜來香), "Ocean Bird" (海燕), "If Only" (恨不相逢未嫁時), and "Second Dream" (第二夢).

At the end of World War II, Li was arrested in Shanghai by the Kuomintang and sentenced to death by firing squad for treason and collaboration with the Japanese.

However, before she could be executed, her parents (at the time both under arrest in Beijing) managed to produce a copy of her birth certificate, proving she was not a Chinese national after all, and have her childhood Russian friend, Lyuba Monosova Gurinets, smuggle it into Shanghai inside the head of a geisha doll.

In spite of the acquittal, the Chinese judges still warned Li to leave China immediately or she would risk being lynched; and so in 1946, she resettled in Japan and launched a new acting career there under the name Yoshiko Yamaguchi, working with directors such as Akira Kurosawa.

For example, in 1949, Shin-Toho studios produced Repatriation (歸國「ダモイ」), an omnibus film which told four stories about the struggles of Japanese trying to return to Japan from the Soviet Union after having been taken prisoner following the defeat.

The following year, Yamaguchi starred with actor Ryō Ikebe in Escape at Dawn (曉の脫走), produced by Toho and based on the novel Shunpuden (春婦傳).

[11] In the 1950s, she established her acting career as Shirley Yamaguchi in Hollywood and on Broadway (in the short-lived musical "Shangri-La") in the U.S. She married Japanese American sculptor, Isamu Noguchi, in 1951.

In 1969, she became the host of The Three O'Clock You (Sanji no anata) TV show on Fuji Television, reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as the Vietnam War.

As part of the 1993 fall honors list, she was decorated with the Gold and Silver Star of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class.

[18] Despite her controversial past, she influenced future singers such as Teresa Teng, Fei Yu-Ching, and Winnie Wei (韋秀嫻), who covered her evergreen hits.

Jacky Cheung recorded a cover of Kōji Tamaki's "行かないで" ("Ikanaide") and renamed it "Lei Hoeng Laan."

In January 1991, a musical about her life was released in Tokyo, which generated controversy because its negative portrayal of Manchukuo upset many Japanese conservatives.

Speaking in 2012 about the concert, Yamaguchi said, "I sang with hope that I could offer consolation to the Japanese Americans, as I heard that they had gone through hardships during the war.

"[20] She died at the age of 94 in Tokyo on September 7, 2014, exactly ten years after one of her fellow Seven Great Singing Stars, Gong Qiuxia.