The Chinese Mirror

Romance of the West Chamber (1927) and Ancient Costume Movies

    In its first 20 years, Chinese movie themes main trends were contemporary social issues and love stories in modern dress, with even the Tianyi studio's 1926 version of the classic "Butterfly Lovers" costuming the actors in the fashions of the mid-1920s to relate a story set in the past.  But toward the end of the decade Chinese audiences were starting to tire of  modern dress films with limited themes, so around 1927 a vigorous upsurge of "ancient costume movies" swept through the film community.  Unfortunately, most of the ancient costume movies from those years are lost, and the earliest of these we can see today is 1927's "Xi Xiang Ji" 西厢记 (Romance of the West Chamber), directed by Hou Yao.

Observing "the ancients" filming "the ancients"

    On April 6, 2001, the 25th International Hong Kong Film Festival had a lively session.  In the exhibition list for the "China's Movie Classics" unit of the program, the first-named film was a 1927 Xinmin Film Company production, director Hou Yao's "Romance of the West Chamber."   Because it was a silent, the sponsor took a different approach by bringing in a prominent Hong Kong organist to provide a musical background for this silent classical love story.  The festival program described this showing as "observing the ancients viewing the ancients." 
     In a search of the literature regarding this movie, I found it interesting that there was surprisingly little written about it by Chinese scholars.  In fact, the only in-depth study of this particular film I came up with was by an American scholar (referenced at the end of this post).  The lack of Chinese studies is surprising, as "Romance" is perhaps the sole surviving representative of a time when Chinese movies were in the midst of an "ancient costume movement."

Fei Mu's "Confucius" (1940)

    Several years ago, an anonymous collector donated a copy of Fei Mu's 1940 "Confucius," previously thought lost, to the Hong Kong Film Archive.  Restoration work has been going on since then, and film scholar David Bordwell recently attended a screening of what has been done so far.  He reports on the experience at his site.

A String of Pearls (1926)

    Filmmakers throughout the world and in every era have drawn upon literary sources for their material, and Chinese filmmakers have been no exception.  More often than not, these literary sources have been works from their own country and culture, but sometimes a movie will be adapted from a foreign literary source, usually (but not always) transplanted to one's native environment.  We have already discussed a few of these transplants in "Railway Robbers" and "Women Skeletons," which were drawn from less well-known sources (I haven't been able to identify the exact sources).  [We have compiled a much longer list, believed to be complete, but no guarantee.]  But in 1926 the Great Wall studio released a movie adapted (and transplanted) from a classic work, one which has been filmed several times in as many countries.

Yichuan Zhenzhu (1926) 一串珍珠  (A String of Pearls)
 
    Changcheng (Great Wall).  B&W.  Silent.  10 reels.  Exists.  Premiered January 21, 1926 at the Palace Theater, Shanghai.  Direction:  Li Zeyuan (credited as C. Y. Lee).  Screenplay:  Hou Yao, adapted from "La Parure" ["The Necklace"] by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893).  Cinematography:  Cheng Peilin (credited as P. L. Chan).   Translation:  Liu Luyin.  Western language intertitles and calligraphy:  Zhang Tiren (credited as T. J. Djan).  Chinese intertitles:  Li Rudi (credited as Y. T. Lee).   Cast:  Lei Xiadian, credited as Harding Loue  (Wang Yusheng); Liu Hanjun, credited as H. June Liu (Wang Xiuzhen); Zhai Qiqi, credited as E. E. Dick (Fu Meixian); Yao Jueseng (Fu Fengsheng); Huang Zhihuai, credited as G. Y. Wong (Huang Guoguang); Zhu Fengmei, credited as Gee Fung-mei (Fu Meixian's mother); Liu Jichun, credited as C. C. Liu (Ma Rulong); Xing Shaomei (Zhou Quan); Cai Yufei, credited as Tsai Yoke-fei (Zhang Huairen).

    The plot follows after the bump.  Since this film exists and is available for viewing today, be warned that our plot synopsis contains spoilers, in fact tells the whole story.

Chen Yanyan: the swallow next door

    As noted in earlier posts, classical era Chinese movie fans and critics were fond of referring to their favorite stars by nicknames.  Chen Yanyan (陈燕燕) was the "swallow", but in reading the popular movie literature of the day, and fan letters, it seems she might well have been everybody's "girl next door", or at least the girl that boys wished was next door.  Her dream from childhood was to be in movies, and while she succeeded in spending nearly all her long life in motion pictures, her off-screen romantic life was as disappointing as that of her on-screen characters.

Beginning a Movie Career

    In the autumn of 1930, the middle-class Chen family of Beiping (now Beijing) had a 14-year-old daughter named Chen Jianyan (陈煎燕), a student at Sacred Heart Girls School, intelligent and a good student, but obsessed with movies.  It was said that she saw practically every movie, Chinese or foreign, shown in Beiping; if she could physically get to it, she saw it, often repeatedly.
    So it was quite a thrill for the teenager when a new Shanghai studio, the Lianhua Film Company (also called the United Photoplay Service), announced it would film the exteriors for its first production in Beiping.  The worldwide economic depression was starting to affect China, and smaller studios were either going under or joining forces for survival, Lianhua being a merger of Li Minwei's Minxin studio and the Da Zhonghua Baihe studio.  The new company's goal was to make progressive films, intended to entertain while (hopefully) getting the audience to think, and it had already attracted some like-minded talent from other studios.  From Mingxing came Ruan Lingyu, limited largely to supporting roles by Mingxing director Zhang Shichuan, but recruited to be Lianhua's top actress; and Cai Chusheng, an assistant director at Mingxing but eager to move up.  Holdovers from the former Minxin studio included Li Minwei himself and his actress-wife Lin Chuchu; the U.S.-trained writer-director Sun Yu; and a young martial arts actor on the verge of stardom, Jin Yan.
    The film being shot in Beiping that autumn was "Gudu Chunmeng" 故都参梦 (Spring Dream in the Old Capital).  Every day, as soon as school let out, Chen Jianyan would rush to the site of the filming to watch one of her beloved movies actually being made.  Not just any movie, but a major production produced and written by Luo Mingyou (罗明佑), the head of the new merged studio, and directed by Sun Yu.  Ruan Lingyu and Lin Chuchu had the two principal female roles.  The cinematographer was another Minxin holdover, Huang Shaofen, in the early stages of what would become a legendary career, and someone who would play an important role in Chen Jianyan's life in the future.

A Lakeside Dream (1927): Tian Han and the Psychological Romance

   In the late 1920s some of the more avant garde filmmakers experimented with making romances that probed the psyches of their principal male characters.  These characters were dramatists, college students, poets, etc., characters with artistic or scholarly achievements, but tending to be overly romantic and sentimental, therefore easily exploited.   After his frustrating experience with Go to the People, Tian Han was eager to try again at filmmaking, as well as let out some of those leftover frustrations.

[above, Tian Han]   

Although "A Lakeside Dream" was Tian Han's first successful venture into motion pictures, before it was released, he remarked that he considered it experimental, unlikely to make any money.  It seems to have been an emotional catharsis for Tian, whose protagonist, the frustrated dramatist Sun Bijiang, was a vague representation of Tian himself.  Tian was heavily influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis, in fact uncritically accepting of Freudian theory, and before writing this screenplay he immersed himself in researching the behavior of those involved in sado-masochistic relationships. -- [Tian, Han.  Yingshi zhui huai lu  影事追怀录 (Movie Memories).  Beijing:  China Film Press, 1981, p.83.] 

Hubian Chunmeng (1927) 湖边春梦 (A Lakeside Dream)

    Mingxing.  B&W.  Silent.  9 reels.  Premiered October 9, 1927 at the Palace.  Direction:  Bu Wancang.  Screenplay and program notes:  Tian Han.  Cinematography:  Dong Keyi, Shi Shiqing.  Sets:  Dong Tianya.  Cast: Gong Jianong (Sun Bijiang), Yang Naimei (Li Qibo), Xiao Ying (Peng Feixiong), Tang Jie (stage manager), Mao Jianpei (Fei Cuixian), Lin Zhusan (Huang the director), Huang Junpu (the clown), Wang Mengshi (Ma Weifu), Wang Xianzhai (first performer), Gao Lihen (second performer), Dong Xiangping (third performer).

     Playwright Sun Bijiang has a falling out with his protegée actress Fei Cuixian over her playgirl lifestyle. 

[Gong Jianong chides actress Mao Jianpei about her playgirl ways]

To get over it, he takes a holiday trip to West Lake at Hangzhou, and on the train meets Peng Feixiong and his wife Li Qibo, a strangely mismatched married couple.  The three are staying at the same lakeside inn, and as they become more  acquainted, the dramatist and the wife, Li Qibo,  begin an affair.

 [right, Sun meets a strange couple:  Xiao Ying, left; Yang Naimei, right]

    But it turns out she is a sadist, and as part of their daily lovemaking demands he allow himself to be bound and whipped.  After his initial shock, he finds to his surprise he enjoys it. 

[left, his new lover shows Sun a new way to have fun and games]

During one of their outdoor sessions, a gang of bandits sets upon them and abducts Li; but when Sun awakens he pursues them, kills the bandit chieftain and rescues her, despite being badly wounded.  He awakens in the hospital to hear a doctor saying, "You're pretty lucky:  you've had a fever and been delirious, but you'll be all right".  It had all been a dream.  But what did it mean? Were these his true, his innermost desires?

                                                         [right, a romantic dream of heroism]

Go to the People (1927): Tian Han and the Southern Film Society

    Tian Han 田汉 (1898-1968) was one of the leading Chinese intellectuals of the first half of the last century:  dramatist, opera scenarist, stage and screen scriptwriter, author of fiction, poet, lyricist, literary and art critic, social activist … Tian Han did it all.  Unlike the parade of young filmmakers at that time from bourgeois or upper-class backgrounds, Tian Han was born in 1898 to a poor peasant family in a village near Changsha, Hunan.  Again unlike so many of his contemporaries, Tian did not return to China after extensive post-graduate study and travel in Europe or the U.S., although he did have three years of graduate study in Tokyo. 
    Upon his return to China in 1922, he settled in Shanghai and taught at two universities there, while also devoting himself to script writing.  In 1924 Tian and his wife founded a literary journal, and the following year he joined with four other young overseas returnees to found the Southern Dramatic Society (南国剧社) to stage progressive plays.  In 1926, Tian founded the Southern Film Society (南国影社) to extend their ideas to the screen, then wrote and directed the society's first movie effort:

Dao Minjian Qu (1927)--unfinished 到民间去 (Go to the People)

    Southern Film Society.  B&W.  Silent.  Filmed between April, 1926 and January, 1927.  Direction and Screenplay:  Tian Han.  Cast:  Wu Jiaxiang, Tang Huaiqiu, Yi Su, Tang Lin, Gu Menghong, Ye Dingluo, Jiang Guangchi, Li Jinfa, Zhong Zitong, Boris Piniek.

    Tian Han’s script, which narrates the story of two university students, was inspired by a poem by the Meiji Era poet Ishikawa Takuboku  石川 啄木 (1886-1912).  Unfortunately, a shortage of funds resulted in the project’s early termination.  The Japanese cinematographer, name unrecorded, returned home taking the negatives in lieu of the payment owed him.  Tian Han later commented that “A year’s hard work and maximum effort by everyone still wasn’t enough”.  It is interesting to note that none of the actors listed in the cast appear in standard Chinese film references, so may have been strictly stage actors from the Southern Dramatic Society, or perhaps amateurs.

2008 Historical Resources Updated

New publications on Chinese film history have been added to the 2008 historical resources page.  Additions since the last update are indicated with a tilde ~.