Background:
In 1916, Zhang Shichuan got together with writer (and later director) Guan Haifeng 管海峰to work on a screen adaptation of a very successful Shanghai stage production "Victims of Opium," (Heiji Yuanhun 黑籍冤魂). The story had a decade-long history: originally a short story by Wu Jianren 吴趼人, published in the literary magazine Yueyue Xiaoshuo (v.1, no.4, January 29, 1907) and adapted for the stage in 1910 by Xu Fumin. The play enjoyed a long run, and provided an excellent opportunity for China's fledgling filmmakers to expand their horizons beyond the comedy shorts which were the early staples of Chinese filmmaking. The original plan was to cast the movie with actors from the New Stage Theater who had been doing the stage version, but after negotiations broke down the filmmakers successfully negotiated with the Minming Society, a competing troupe, to perform the play on screen. The lone still photo which survives from the film indicates the movie was a film of the stage production. In any case, it was quite successful, touching some nerves among a Chinese population which was still suffering from the evils of imperialism, massive foreign dumping of addictive drugs, as well as Chinese traditional society's own feudal practices.
[right, still photo from 'Victims of Opium'; click on picture for larger image]
Plot synopsis:
A miserly rich man named Zeng Hedu, worried about his adult son's Bojia's involvement with outside charity work, orders the son to begin using opium, in the absurd belief that addiction will make him stay at home all the time and concentrate on managing the family business. Under the feudal ethics of the time, Bojia has no choice but to obey his father. He gradually becomes a drug addict, but with the exact opposite result. He becomes totally incapable of paying any attention to family matters, and this unexpected outcome sends the father into a fatal apoplectic fit. Although Bojia's wife pleads with him to quit, the family scion is too far gone to listen. Some time later, their little boy finds some of his father's drug, and thinking it candy, eats it and dies of opium poisoning. Bojia's mother, already ailing and deeply remorseful for her late husband's stupidity, soon passes away. Two of the Zengs' employees, pretending to be caring and helpful, secretly embezzle and squander business funds and property, and even sell Bojia's daughter Zhenzhen to a brothel. Forced from the family home by creditors, Bojia wanders the streets for a while, then finds menial work pulling a rickshaw. One day he picks up a passenger who turns out to be his daughter Zhenzhen. But their bittersweet reunion is brief, as the brothel madam takes Zhenzhen away, leaving Bojia standing alone in the street. Unable to stand the pain in his heart any longer, he falls dead at the city gate.
In addition to pointing out the evils of opium through its depiction of the drug's destruction of a family, the film also castigated the ruin inflicted on China by imperialism, in particular the British imperialism that forced opium on China after the Opium War of 1840-1842. Other targets of the movie's criticism were the patriarchal practices of the day, in this case an adult man with a family being obliged to follow unquestioningly the orders of a parent, no matter how foolish or destructive to his own family. Also targeted were the hypocritical and exploitative actions of the two shop assistants, whose names, Bu Yaolian and Mei Zhishi, are homophones in Chinese for "shameless" and "ignorant," respectively.
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Heiji Yuanhun (1917)
黑籍冤魂
English title: Victims of Opium
Directors:
Zhang Shichuan, Guan Haifeng
Writers:
Guan Haifeng (screenplay)
Xu Fumin (play)
Wu Jianren (story)
Cinematography:
A.E. Lauro (Italy)
Premiered: 16 February 1917 in Shanghai
Black and White. Silent. 4 reels.
Cast:
Zhang Lisheng ... Zeng Bojia
Xu Hanmei ... Bojia's wife
Zha Tianying ... the cousin
Feng Ergou ... Old Bian
Hong Jingling ... the maidservant
Huang Xiaoya ... the daughter
Huang Youya ... the son
