Liu Beijin

According to Liu's Record of Returning Home, he was born in Singapore on 23 April 1902 and moved to Muar, Malaysia with his family four months later.

The book was over 300 pages long and included observations on various aspects of Chinese culture and society in addition to the Shanghai film industry.

After consulting the prince of the Johor sultanate, he organised a tour of Shanghai lasting more than ten days in which he was accompanied by over 20 Chinese high school students from Malaya.

[2] A shophouse at 12 Pekin Street housed the company's offices while Liu rented out a bungalow at 58 Meyer Road, which served as a film studio.

[5] Liu wished to "showcase life as it was in Singapore and Malaya to the Chinese in China", viewing film as a medium by which he could "instill knowledge among the masses, improve the well being of society [and] promote the prestige of the nation and propagation of culture.

However, due to disputes between Guo and Chen, the latter left, leaving the former as the film's director and producer, while Liu contributed to the script, naming the heroine Wai-ching after his youngest daughter.

However, this never materialised as he shut down the Nanyang Liu Beijin Independent Film Production Company for "personal reasons" in May 1927.

He concludes that Liu's views represented the "embodiment of the cultural production of a Chinese historical identity among pre–Cold War S.E.

"[1] Following the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, which caused the rubber trade to decline, a dispute between Liu and his brothers led to him leaving the family business.

However, as a result of the war, Liu did not receive approval to return to Malaya, leaving him stranded in China, where he refused to participate in the ongoing conflict.

He became a critic of the Kuomintang after what he saw of them in the Second Sino-Japanese War and was detained by them soon after in a prison in Kunming on suspicion of being a member of the Chinese Communist Party, during which he was subject to torture.

However, this made the Chinese Communist Party suspect him of being a member of the Kuomintang, resulting in him again being detained, this time at the Chongqing Songshan prison farm.

[3] In May 1989, the Sichuan Provincial People's Government [zh] officially recognised the contributions of the Nanyang Overseas mechanics, including Liu, to the war effort.

[3] On his son's appeal, Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau [zh] acknowledged both Liu's contributions to the war effort and that he was "undeserving" of incarceration in 1991.