Li Tien-lu

Li Tien-lu (24 December 1910 – 13 August 1998) was a Taiwanese puppeteer. He is best known to the international audience for playing principal characters in several Taiwanese films directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien.

Born in Taiwan in 1910,^[1][2] Li Tien-lu had been trained in glove puppetry by his father since the age of eight.^[1] He founded the puppet theatre troupe Almost Like Life in 1932, aged 22.^[2] The group ended performances in 1937, soon after the Second Sino-Japanese War began and Japanese authorities censored Taiwanese Hokkien entertainment.^[2][3] Almost Like Life returned to the stage in 1941.^[3] Li's troupe premiered one of its most famous performances, 300 Years of Qing Dynasty — Keng Yao, in 1948.^[4] They became even more well-known under the Kuomintang government.^[2] In 1962, Li's puppet troupe became the first to be featured in a television show.^[2] Li considered retirement in the 1970s, as the popularity of glove puppetry lessened.^[2] However, both Jacques Pimpaneau and Jean-Luc Penso visited Li from France,^[2] and Penso remained in Taiwan to learn the art of glove puppetry.^[5] Penso established the Theatre du Petit Miroir troupe in Paris in 1975.^[5] Penso later recalled Li's intense and challenging teaching style, and stated that Li refused tuition payments, as he had taught his children glove puppetry for free.^[6][7] Other students of Li included his sons Chen Hsi-huang^[8][9] and Li Chuan-tsan,^[10] as well as Huang Wu-shan,^[11] Madeleine Beresford, and Margaret Moody.^[10]

Li also performed Peking opera, Taiwanese opera, and Hakka opera.^[3] He received Taiwan's National Heritage Award in 1985,^[3] and the National Cultural Award in 1991, which was bestowed with the title of "living national treasure."^[12] In 1995, the government of France named Li a knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.^[2] The Li Tien-lu Hand Puppet Historical Museum is named after Li and opened to the public in 1996.^[13][14] He died at the age of 87 on 13 August 1998.^[3]

Li featured in the role of the grandfather in Hou Hsiao-hsien's 1986 film Dust in the Wind and 1987 film Daughter of the Nile. He also played the patriarch of the extended Chinese family facing the events surrounding A City of Sadness (1989). The Puppetmaster (1993) tells the true story of Li's life as a master puppeteer, spanning the years from Li’s birth in 1910 to the end of Japan’s fifty-year occupation of Taiwan in 1945. Li was posthumously featured in the 2001 documentary Tug of War: The Story of Taiwan.^[15]

Li Tien-lu was the subject of a Google Doodle on the occasion of what would have been his 110th birthday on 24 December 2020.^[16]