From such 1960s classics as "A Touch of Zen" and "Come Drink With Me" to such more recent productions as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero," swordsman films have for the past few decades been the image of China in the eyes of foreign audiences. But when Ang Lee was expressing his gratitude for being honored with an Oscar, he should have included on his list of thank-yous a much older movie, from 80 years earlier: "Huo Shao Hong Lian Si" 《火烧红莲寺》(Burning of the Red Lotus Temple).
While not the first swordsman film, "Burning" was the one that initiated a fervor for the genre among Chinese movie fans, the principal ancestor of the modern works listed in the first paragraph. The genre itself was an old, established one, deriving from traditional Chinese operas that highlighted the military achievements of legendary Chinese heroes and heroines, both historical and fictional. But 1928's "Burning" was the starting point for swordsman films as a mania, and all the familiar cliches of the genre, its flying heroes and heroines, seemingly invincible to harm and destroying evildoers with a single stroke, all date from that pioneer effort of eight decades ago.
Suppose that humanity disappeared completely from the planet, and the only evidence remaining that we ever existed was motion pictures. Some extra-terrestrial archaeologists might conclude from this evidence that at the end of the 1920s, the world's highest form of life had evolved in China – the "girl in red." I base that judgement based on a comparison with the most prominent Hollywood character types of that time: the cynical, fast-talking reporter of the screwball comedy; the gun-toting, square-jawed cowboy of Westerns; the tough-talking cops and ill-fated gangsters of detective movies; and the love-obsessed young playboys and wise-cracking flappers of the musical.
[left, Hu Die as the "Girl in Red"]
So what was this "girl in red" like? Well, just like the heroines in "Burning," she could fly through the clouds and across the treetops, outracing and repelling armed adversaries. This ability to "fly" clearly set the Chinese girl of 1928 apart from the rest of the world's inhabitants. At a time when the angels of the West wore pasted-on wings, the Chinese had attained the status of the "flying immortals" pictured in the cave murals at Dunhuang.
The film's cinematographer was Dong Keyi, 22 years old when the series began, and in the earliest phase of what would become a legendary career, not just as a cinematographer, but as a creator of special effects and trick photography. His preparation for filming people in flight involved considerable research, mainly in American film magazines, which initially gave him the idea of utilizing a flying trapeze for these scenes. But when he began considering other means, Dong came up with what became a hallmark of Chinese martial arts movies – the hanging steel wire. Chinese filmmakers so liked this technique that every Shanghai studio adopted it for their own martial arts fantasy productions. In “Burning III,” a second heroine, a new major character called the “red girl,” played by Mingxing's top actress Hu Die, was introduced to go along with the series’ first heroine, played by Xia Peizhen. Suspended high above the ground by the iron wire affixed to her waist, her costume fluttering in the “breeze” from a giant electric fan, and a thin gauze screen placed between her and the camera to further screen out the wire, the “red girl” soared through the skies against a backdrop of China’s most well-known mountains and rivers. Although audiences thrilled to the sight, Hu Die later recalled that she was terrified each time she did it, but just kept on smiling, and found that after a time it gave her a heady sensation, like being a little drunk.
Although the first "Burning" was not originally intended to have sequels, in an interesting parallel to our modern "slasher" films, at the end two of the villianous characters escaped, thereby providing a bridge to the next installment, and this pattern was followed throughout the series.
[right, Xia Peizhen, "Burning's' co-heroine]
The flame of “Burning of the Red Lotus Temple” burned long and brightly: in 3 years, the Mingxing company churned out 18 sequels, setting box office records for Chinese theaters to that time. After the first production, Zheng Zhengqiu left to work on other, less commercial projects, and Zhang Shichuan took over the writing duties in addition to directing. Beginning also with part 2, the films departed from the plotline of the original novel on which it was based, Jianghu Qi Xia Zhuan 《江湖奇侠传》(Strange Swordsman Story) by Pingjiang Buxiaosheng 平江不肖生, pen name of Xiang Kairan 向恺然 (1889 or 1890-1957), a hugely popular and best-selling martial arts novelist of the 1920s who will be profiled in a later post. The subsequent films had more special effects from cinematographer Dong Keyi, with improved flying techniques, and beginning with part 3 a pair of heroine immortals, each with her own distinct set of martial arts skills.
Unfortunately, these films proved too successful for their own good, or for the entire genre, for that matter. The franchise might have gone on indefinitely, but the Nationalist government was becoming increasingly concerned about growing public infatuation with motion pictures, mentioning specifically the Chinese mania for “martial arts/swordsman gods and spirits films,” and in late 1930 ordered the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Internal Affairs to look into the situation. The agencies’ report, issued the following January, recommended “enforced detailed regulation,” and China’s first national film inspection system began from this. In 1932, the government established a “Central Film Inspection Commission,” in other words, a censorship bureau, with special oversight powers over the movie industry. Regardless of how one may feel about censorship as a means of controlling the issue, the official concern is understandable: only 3% of the Chinese people at that time had received a modern scientific education, and contemporary estimates were that 95% of the population believed in the existence of “gods with supernatural powers.” One of the new inspection agency’s first acts was to ban any further production or exhibition of “Burning of the Red Lotus Temple,” and the swordsman genre headed south for Hong Kong.
In March, 1935, “Burning of the Red Lotus Temple XIX” had a Hong Kong run, the last known showing of any parts of this now-lost series, although in 1941 the wartime "Orphan Island" studio Yihua produced a one-shot remake of Part I. Beginning in 1950, several of the parts of “Burning” enjoyed a succession of remakes in Hong Kong, where the swordsman genre flourished for decades, but not returning home to its mainland birthplace until the 1980s.
[from left to right, Hu Die, Xia Peizhen and Zheng Xiaoqiu plot strategy]
