Little is known of this early period except that his parents died while Ma-Xu was still a child, which was said to influence his decision to incorporate his wife's surname, "Ma".
[1] Ma-Xu's first real success, however, did not come until 1937 with Song at Midnight, often referred to as China's first horror film.
Ma-Xu followed up Song with two additional horror films, Walking Corpse in an Old House (1938) and The Lonely Soul (1938).
Like Bu, Ma-Xu suffered for his work on The Opium War after the Japanese were defeated and was eventually forced to move to Hong Kong where he continued to work in the film business until 1961, when he was killed in a road accident.
[2] Note: in most early Chinese films, there often were no official English translations, leading to a sometimes confusing lack of consistency in titles.