[2] By the early 1930s, Shi was one of the leading directors for the left-leaning Lianhua Film Company, along with Cai Chusheng, Sun Yu and others.

[2] Shi would later join another left-leaning studio, Yihua Film Company, at the behest of the screenwriter Tian Han.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Shi fled to the interior of China with the Nationalist government, and directed propaganda films such as Protect Our Land (1938).

[2] After the war, Shi returned to Shanghai and helped found the Kunlun Film Company, the successor to Lianhua.

[1][2] Shi would not regain the level of popularity as he would with his Kunlun films, and his final major work came after the Chinese Communist Revolution with New Heroes and Heroines (1951).