Yan Jizhou

[5] Tiger Heroes, starring Wang Xiaotang and Yu Yang, is regarded as one of the most influential spy films in the history of Chinese cinema.

Unlike his other films which featured good-looking movie stars, its protagonists are a short, plain-looking man with a limp and a seductive widow of a landlord's son.

He was subjected to struggle sessions but survived largely unscathed thanks to protection afforded by the senior army general Li Desheng.

Li resisted the demand by Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's radical wife, to imprison Yan for 20 years.

[2] After the end of the Cultural Revolution, many of Yan's works came to be regarded as "red classics", although to his disappointment, Early Morning Chill was largely neglected and forgotten.