Sun Yu was a major leftist film director active in the 1930s in Shanghai. One of the core directors of the Lianhua Film Company, Sun Yu made a name for himself with a series of socially conscious dramas in the early to mid-1930s. After the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, Sun Yu made his way to the interior, where he continued to make films glorifying the war effort against the Japanese.

The United Photoplay Service Company was one of the three dominant production companies based in Shanghai, China during the 1930s, the other two being the Mingxing Film Company and the Tianyi Film Company, the forerunner of the Hong Kong-based Shaw Brothers Studio.