The Chinese Mirror

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.

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."