Mingzhu was most famous for her role as an actress but was also an investor and production coordinator specifically during her time off camera in the 1930s.
[2] Mingzhu was born Yin Shangzian in 1904 in Wujiang, now part of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province of China.
[3] Mingzhu's father died when she was a child, leaving her mother a winning lottery ticket which allowed her to move the entire family to Shanghai.
At the age of seventeen, Mingzhu met director Dan Duyu at a party and the pair began working together, making films.
[6] However, Mingzhu's career was in danger of ending after the publicity Sea Oath as her mother forbid her from making any more films.
[1] During the three-year period that her mother forbid her from acting, Mingzhu became an investor by investing in the Shanghai Shadow Play Company.
[4] Note: in most early Chinese films, there often were no official English translations, leading to a sometimes confusing lack of consistency in titles.