Huang Zumo, director of the classic Chinese movie, Romance on Lushan Mountain, died Saturday night in Shanghai.

The 90-year-old director died of heart failure at a local hospital in Shanghai, said a spokesman with the Shanghai Film Group Corporation (SFG).

Huang is most remembered for shooting Romance on Lushan Mountain, a 1980 blockbuster about two lovers who were forced to separate due to the opposing political views of their families, with the backdrop set in the picturesque Lushan Mountain.

The movie won Huang great fame and popularity and was regarded as a landmark, since it was the first new China-made film that included a kissing scene.

A sequel, titled Romance on Lushan Mountain 2010 and directed by Zhang Yu, who played the heroine in the 1980 Romance on Lushan Mountain, was made in 2010 as a tribute to the original film.

(Xinhua News Agency February 20, 2011)