"Burning of the Red Lotus Temple": an expert's view

[left, Professor Jia Leilei]

[The following is a translation of an interview with Jia Leilei (贾磊磊)，  Associate Director and Research Fellow at the Chinese Academy of Television Arts, as well as professor and doctoral advisor at the Nanjing Normal University’s College of Liberal Arts and Literature.  He is one of China’s leading film historians, with research specialties that include the history of martial arts movies.  Among his more than 200 published books and articles is The History of Chinese Martial Arts Films (Zhongguo Wuxia Dianying Shi 中国武侠电影史 Beijing:  Culture and Arts Press, 2005).  This interview originally appeared in the Beijing newspaper New Capital Times (Xin Jing Bao 新京报), May 9, 2004.  As of August, 2009, the original was still online.  The interview was conducted for the New Capital Times by journalistic intern Zhang Yue (张悦).] 

   After the “ancient costume fervor” of the mid-1920s had cooled, the Mingxing studio moved down a different path, and ignited the first spark in the next conflagration – the martial arts/swordsman/gods-and-spirits fantasies:  “Burning of the Red Lotus Temple.”  This initial spark produced a new fervor that dominated the Chinese movie scene for the next four years.  We discussed the film and its impact with Jia Leilei.

Q:  Before the emergence of martial arts “gods and spirits” films as a genre, there had already been Chinese films which had swordsmen as their simple theme; was “Burning of the Red Lotus Temple” a commercial innovation built on that foundation?

Jia:  Swordsman films were not something that just burst suddenly from someone’s imagination, or from some studio’s.  It was the result of a gradual process.  There were two principal factors in the emergence of swordman films:  the first was the influence of American Western movies and the enjoyment Chinese audiences took in watching them, and that inspired Chinese filmmakers; the second was China’s deep store of chivalrous fiction, a mature source of material appropriate for the camera lens, and fully prepared for the screen.  Before “Burning of the Red Lotus Temple” there were martial arts movies like “Railway Robbers” and “Four Heroes Named Wang,” but these didn’t have much impact.  But “Burning” touched off a surge of enthusiasm for the genre.

Q:  After “Burning,” swordsman films had several waves of popularity in China’s first century of cinema.

Jia:  That’s right, “Burning of the Red Lotus Temple” touched off the first surge of popularity for the swordsman genre, with each major Shanghai company picking up on its commercial possibilities.  The second surge came in the 1960s from Hong Kong and Taiwan, although filmmakers at that time were fully aware that [bringing back the genre] was a high risk venture, a speculative commercial product.  But this era gave us a succession of classic movies, violent ones like Chang Che’s, which emphasized male bonding and then gradually transitioned from “swords” to “kicks.”  The third surge came at the start of the 1980s, in movies from the Chinese mainland, beginning with “Mysterious Buddha” 《神秘的大佛》, then such films as “Wudang” 《武当》，and “The Magic Braid”《神鞭》reaching its peak in 1982 with “Shaolin Temple” 《少林寺》.  The fourth surge came at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, with swordsman films that were cooperative China-Hong Kong-Taiwan ventures, for example “New Dragon Gate Inn” 《新龙门客栈》

But while it was very successful, I don’t think “Hero” 《英雄》 should be included in that last surge:  it’s a unique phenomenon, a category in itself.