The Chinese Mirror

Chinese Language Movies Adapted From Foreign Literary Works

     Several earlier posts in this space have discussed Chinese fiction films which were based on foreign (i.e. non-Chinese) literary sources.  This stoked my curiosity about what other foreign sources Chinese filmmakers have adapted for the screen.  But in gathering the information I soon came to realize I was proving the wisdom of the old aphorism concerning the unforeseen consequences of swamp-draining.  So I have decided to publish the findings to date, covering the first known adaptation in 1920 through the decade of the 1940s.  This page is archived under Research Aids, and will be updated occasionally, eventually bringing it up to date and including Chinese-language films produced in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as the mainland.  (There are no Taiwan productions in the list so far.)  Each future update will be announced here as a post.

Photo Gallery: Anna May Wong

[left, Anna May Wong.  Click on image to link to the gallery]

    As part of an extensive pictorial review of modern China's Republican era (1912-1949), the news service PeopleNet has a picture gallery of Anna May Wong, the first Asian actress to make a dent in Hollywood, although the virulent racism of the time prevented her from getting the opportunities for major stardom she was capable of achieving.  The captions to the 30 photos briefly review her life and career, and while acknowledging the major role played by racism, it puts some of the resonsibility for exploiting it on Song Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek).  The article alleges Chiang used her U.S. political clout to encourage the suppression of Anna May's career, as Wong came from the immigrant class of Chinese that had a Western image of laundry and restaurant owners, gangsters, coolies, etc., and not the emerging, highly-educated elite the Madame herself came from and was now leading. 
    I will leave that topic to the political historians, but from the editor's standpoint, I hope that when an Asian actress at last takes an Oscar for Best Actress, she will devote a few moments of her acceptance speech to giving a shout-out to Anna May for blazing the trail, as Halle Berry did in acknowledging her debt to Dorothy Dandridge.

Redressing a Grievance (1927): A Classic Detective's Screen Debut

    For several decades a favorite of many mystery readers in the West has been a detective in ancient China called "Judge Dee," [Di Renjie 狄仁傑 (630-700)]. He was a real life official in the Tang dynasty, and his reputation for crime-solving exploits in his early career as a magistrate were fictionalized in a series of novels by the Dutch diplomat and scholar Robert van Gulik.  Hong Kong director Tsui Hark (徐克) is making a Judge Dee movie starring Andy Lau (刘德华) as Dee and Carina Lau (刘嘉玲) as the Empress Wu Zetian (武则天 625-705), for whom Dee served as a trusted councilor late in his career.  (The Empress Wu has been the subject of film treatments several times in Chinese movie history, and we will discuss these in a future article.)  The Tsui Hark version (the plotline and many still photos are online), will bring in Dee's martial arts expertise, utilizing Sammo Hung as action director.  A martial arts version of Dee conforms to the van Gulik version, in which the Judge was a virtually invincible master swordsman, especially when wielding his legendary "Rain Dragon."  Dee was also a boxing master, a guise he often used when conducting an undercover investigation (another being that of an itinerant physician).

    But while van Gulik made Dee much better-known in the West, the more familiar literary detective in China is "Judge (or Lord) Bao," [Bao Zheng 包拯 (999-1062), aka Bao Qingtian (包青天)] , like Dee a real historical person.  Bao's fictionalized cases have long been the subjects of books, classical Beijing operas, and numerous TV films and miniseries (including children's versions, both live action and animated).  In fact, the number and variety of the TV versions is similar to that of Sherlock Holmes in the West, with such spinoff series titles as "The New Cases of Bao Qingtian," "Young Bao Qingtian," (the hero as a young man) and "Young Detective Bao Qingtian," (the hero as a child), etc.  In China, when I would tell a friend or colleague how much I had enjoyed Judge Dee, the usual reaction would be similar to what a British person's might be if a visitor from another culture said he had avidly read "all the Doctor Thorndyke mysteries, and I've even read a couple about that other fellow, Sherlock what's-his-name."

    So given the character's popularity over the past few centuries,  it stands to reason that Bao's cases have been the subject of numerous Chinese language theatrical films, the first of which we are discussing here.  Reading the plot demonstrates the main reason van Gulik rewrote the Dee stories for a Western audience rather than just translating them:  the classical Chinese detective genre relied considerably on solving cases through supernatural intervention, as in this film, where a murder victim's ghost becomes the star witness in the case, something difficult for a non-Chinese reader to accept in a detective story.  It is unexplained as to why the filmmakers cast two different actors as the victim and the victim's ghost.
 

Wu Pen Ji (1927) 乌盆记 (Redressing a Grievance)

literal English title:  The Story of the Black Pot

    Da Zhonghua Baihe.  B&W.  Silent.  7 reels.  Premiered July 27, 1927 at the Palace theater in Shanghai.  Direction and Screenplay:  Zhu Shouju, adapted from a story in the Ming dynasty collection Bao Gong An (包公案) “Cases of Judge Bao,” by An Yushi (安遇时).   Cinematography:  Zhou Shimu.  Cast:  Wang Zhengxin (Zhao Da), Yang Jingwo (Zhao’s wife), Xie Yunqing (Zhang Bieji), Wang Naidong (Liu Shichang’s ghost), Ma Shouhong (Liu Shichang), Zhou Wenzhu (Liu’s wife), Ling Wusi (Judge Bao).

    Silk merchant Liu Shichang travels among various cities and towns while conducting his business.  

One day, taking shelter from the rain in the humble home of a couple named Zhao, and seeing how poor they are, he gives them some silver coins.  But when Mr. Zhao sees Liu's money, he repays this act of kindness by fatally poisoning the merchant and robbing him.  After burying the corpse, Zhao gives some of the stolen money to his landlord Zhang Bieji as a debt payment.  He also gives the landlord a black pot he had made.  But after he leaves, Liu's voice rises from the pot, demanding he be avenged.  For after Zhao had buried Liu's body, the victim's flesh and blood had blended into the mud used to make the pot, and it had absorbed Liu's ghost.  Zhang takes the pot to Judge Bao's tribunal.  In the end the murderer is brought to justice.

[no still from the 1927 movie version is known to exist, but this is the DVD cover of the 2008 miniseries "Bao Qingtian."  Judge Bao is often pictured as dressed all in black, and usually with a very swarthy complexion and a crescent shaped birthmark on his forehead, as here.  Click on the image to enlarge] 

Sir Run Run Shaw's Birthdate Reconsidered

    I posted a note the other day concerning what I understood to be the birthday on October 4 of Sir Run Run Shaw.  But I have since learned my information was incorrect.  I came across a lengthy Chinese news article posted online two years ago on the occasion of the celebration of his centennial, which reviewed his life and career.  It also discussed the exact date of birth, apparently the subject of much controversy among the Hong Kong media.  One person who is a close business associate of the Shaw family put it this way when asked, "I don't know the specific date, it was sometime in October, or sometime in November.  I just know it isn't today."
     The usually most reliable Chinese sources tend to give one of three dates for his birthday (If they give one at all:  some just say 1907 and let it go at that):  October 4, October 14, and November 19th. The article explains it this way:  Shao Yifu (Run Run Shaw) was born on October 14, 1907 under the old Lunar calendar, but in a TV documentary about the Shaw Brothers several years ago, in which various identification documents were photographed and shown on screen, someone reviewing the program had misread October 14 as October 4, wrote it that way, and readers just spread on the internet what turned out to be misinformation.  But:  October 14, 1907 on the Lunar calendar was November 19, 1907 on the Gregorian calendar, and I guess that is now the accepted date.  I wrote the wrong date in my earlier post, which I have now deleted.
     Best wishes to Sir Run Run anyway, whenever he chooses to mark the occasion.

The Girl Detective (1928)

    After the Mingxing studio management accepted Zhang Shichuan's decision to promote Hu Die as the company's top actress, the future movie "Empress" garnered a succession of plum screen roles in films that were increasingly and unabashedly commercial, often patterned on those coming out of Hollywood at that time.  One such film, very successful at the box office, was a crime story featuring a glamorous amateur detective assisting the police, and in fact solving the crime, despite the opposition of the regular police.  Further twists were that the investigator's own family were the victims, and the investigator herself was in harm's way during the course of her inquiries.  Since the film is lost, we cannot be certain how graphic was the girl detective's luring of the mob boss:  from the handful of movies that survive from that era (and the written synopses of others), it is obvious that Chinese movies then were no less daring or overt in their sexuality than the pre-code Hollywood movies of that era.  In other words, the lady may have gone somewhat beyond mere flirtation.

Nü Zhentan (1928) 女侦探 (The Girl Detective)

Mingxing.  B&W.  Silent.  10 reels.  Premiered November 14, 1928 at the Palace Theater in Shanghai. Direction:  Zhang Shichuan.  Screenplay and Program Notes: Zheng Zhengqiu.  Cast:  Hu Die (the girl detective), Zheng Chaofan (chief of detectives).  Also:  Wang Jiting, Huang Junfu, Tang Jie, Tan Zhiyuan, Gong Jianong, Hu Shan, Xia Peizhen, Zhao Jingxia, Wang Xianzhai, Wang Mengshi, Xuan Ruilong.

    A wealthy but dysfunctional family consists of five people:  the father, a heavy drinker; the mother, a spendthrift who squanders money on frequent and frivolous shopping sprees; their son and his wife, but she is so mistreated she decides to leave him.  The fifth family member, the daughter, is a normal young woman and student. After she graduates, the daughter takes a vacation trip, and during her absence the family home is invaded and ransacked by a criminal gang who injure the family physically and financially.  When the daughter hears the news, she immediately returns home and involves herself in the middle of a complex criminal case.  She first reports to the police station, offering to assist in bringing the gang to justice.  The chief of detectives, a handsome young man proud of having never left a case unsolved, has taken personal charge of the case, and is reluctant to bring in a well-meaning amateur. He declines her offer of assistance.  But as the case drags on he grows increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress.  The lack of success causes the girl to fear the police will fail, so she  decides to conduct her own investigation. When an underworld figure is killed, a man whose past record included offenses similar to this one, she suspects he may have been involved with the gang.  

[below left, Hu Die (right) consoles a mobster's widow (Hu Shan); click on any picture for larger image]

She visits the deceased man's  widow, and learns from her the gang leader's identity.  In the guise of a sexy playgirl, the girl goes to a night club frequented by he mob boss, meets and lures him into trusting her. Through the boss she infiltrates the gang and uncovers the evidence needed to convict them.  She contacts the chief of detectives, the gang's headquarters are raided by police, and all are rounded up.   Afterwards, the girl and the chief of detectives get together. 

[right, Sex as a weapon:  the lady sets a trap]

"Seventeen Years" Films at the NYFF

    Recently, the editor came across some online articles that deal with our principal topic, the history of Chinese cinema, but are not listed in the left-hand column of this page because the sites carrying the articles do not specialize in our subject.  One of the sites, Moving Image Source, has a two-part video essay (also text) on the "Seventeen Years," the period between the establishment of the People's Republic of China and the Cultural Revolution.  (The link is to part 1.)  This coincides with the 2009 New York Film Festival Masterworks series "(Re)Inventing China: A New Cinema for a New Society, 1949–1966," held September 26-October 6, 2009.  

    That era of Chinese movies as a whole is not one of my favorites.  I am certain the productions of that era accomplished their mission under Chairman Mao's dictum that "the purpose of art is to serve politics," in this specific instance, using film as a tool to educate the masses on the evils of the old society and the necessity for total reform of the system.  But from the standpoint of a movie fan the earlier productions have a boring sameness, basically the same plot just transplanted to a variety of settings, factory, agricultural commune, railroad, school, whatever.  Movies produced in the latter part of the era were better as entertainment, but at bottom really no less political in their message.    

    In one of the film clips, "Living Forever in Burning Flames" (1965), a courageously defiant young Communist woman is being subjected to torture ("enhanced interrogation" in American Newspeak) by a snarling Nationalist officer.  The villain was played by the recently-deceased Xiang Kun, at his scenery-chewing best, and whose obit we carried here.

Some Good Articles from a Commercial Site

     The Chinese Mirror does not carry advertising, because it was conceived as an online counterpart of an academic journal, one that is popularized rather than scholarly.  However, we have no qualms about linking to commercial sites, especially when they offer something of historical relevance.  YesAsia.com, an online marketer of Asian entertainment products, has a supplementary section called Yum Cha!, which contains a considerable number (currently 122) of review articles dealing with various Asian filmmakers and film genres.  Two of the latter that relate directly to articles recently posted here are:  "The Heroic Tradition - Chinese Martial Arts Costume Epics" by James Mudge, which is exactly what the title indicates, and "Strange Stories from Chinese Movie Studios" by Mike Crandol, which discusses the available cinema and TV versions of Pu Songling's classic (and massive) Qing dynasty collection of short stories, Liaozhai Zhiyi 聊斋志异 ("Strange Stories from Liaozhai"), a rich source for Chinese filmmakers over the decades.
       Of course, one objective of these articles, written by experienced and prolific internet reviewers, is to entice the reader into buying the products discussed.  (There is an emphasis on currently available videos, and each of those mentioned is linked to a page which provides all the data needed to order.) But there is also a lot in them that could add to one's enjoyment and appreciation of the films.  So think of it as a well-done infomercial from which you might learn something.

In Search of Li Dandan: the Aviatrix

[left, Li Dandan, teenaged movie star]

    "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."  

    This was the motto of the old City News Bureau of Chicago, and it's too bad it wasn't said at some time by Confucius; if it had been, generations of Chinese historians might have taken it to heart, and saved many others a lot of trouble. Too often, someone with a respected reputation has written something erroneous, and subsequent researchers on the topic will just accept the mistake as fact, without checking it out.  Take, for example, the eventual fate of 1920s silent actress Li Dandan 李旦旦, who created a sensation among Chinese filmgoers as the mischievous young maid in "Romance of the West Chamber" (1927), and as one of the first actresses to portray Hua Mulan on screen. The standard reference Chinese Cinema Encyclopaedia (Shanghai, 1995) says she tragically died young, killed in a "1940s" airplane crash. The China Movie DataBase says the fatal crash occurred in 1946, as does Google China.  But the real muddle comes when searching Baidu (sometimes called "The Chinese Google,").  In its encyclopedia section article on Li Dandan the usually reliable resource states flatly that her fatal crash happened in 1940, but in another article about her under her real name Li Xiaqing 李霞卿 [aka Lee Ya-Ching] Baidu gets it right: she made the U.S. her permanent home, survived well into old age, and died in Oakland, California in 1998, age 88.

    [right, Li Xiaqing, aviatrix and tireless China war relief fundraiser]

     I must admit I initially had it wrong as well:  three years ago, in captioning an illustration for an article about China's earliest film schools, the sources I used stated she had died in a plane crash during World War II, and I just repeated the error.  I have corrected the mistake, and that's one of the things I love about internet publishing:  nothing has to be permanent unless you do it on camera or speak it into a microphone.
    In that earlier post tracing the history of Hua Mulan on Chinese screens, I mentioned that I planned a full profile of Li Dandan, but another blogger has already written that profile, and done it so well there is nothing I can add.  So I will just link here to that post. Apologies to dariandave at Soft Film: Vintage Chinese Cinema for my having missed it the first time around.  His principal resource is a recent book on Li and two other pioneer Chinese women aviators, and I recommend it as well. 
____________________________________

Li Dandan Filmography (all as actress):

1926:
Why Not Her? ... Kong Qiongxian
The God of Peace ... Lin Cuiwei
1927:
The Cape Poet ... Liang Cuiying
The Wandering Songstress ... Li Lingxiao
The Romance of the West Chamber    ... Hongniang
1928:
Five Avenging Women ...
Hua Mulan Joins the Army ...  Hua Mulan 
1939:
Disputed Passage ---  Aviatrix (as Ya-Ching Lee)