Abstract: The national style in Fei Mu’s films has been widely recognized, however, it is not inherent. In most of Fei’s early films, such as Song of China and The Wolf Hill, he adopted Western film narrative skills like shot/reverse shot, metaphor, symbol, paralleling shots, etc, winning him a high domestic reputation for skillful western film languages. But to our surprise, in his film Confucius shot in 1940, Fei abandoned those classical skills most used in American and Soviet Union films that he was so familiar with, such as shot/reverse shot and paralleling shots. Instead, he adopted theatrical means to express film conversations and narratives in specific scenarios, in order to create a Chinese way of image writing. His courage and determination was impressive. Unfortunately, the film wasn’t a success. It was not until the shot of Spring in a Small Town in 1948 that Fei Mu became skilled in self-invented image expressions which took the place of the Western shot/reverse shot. In addition, his restraint in the application of close shot and close-up shot added to the success of the film, which became a masterpiece for the nationalization of Chinese films. 

Key words: Chinese film, Fei Mu, image, shot/reverse sho