The Chinese Mirror

Brigitte Lin Reviews Her Career

[left, the author out of costume]

[In the winter of 2011-12, the Chinese magazine Times Online ran a series of articles in which Chinese who had distinguished themselves during the latter part of the 20th century reviewed their careers, and how they remembered those years now.  The writers were from various areas, including government, politics, business, etc. One of the contributors was from motion pictures, including a favorite of the author [see my avatar], the actress Brigitte Lin Qingxia 林青霞.  The following is a translation of that article.   Comments in brackets, like this one, are the editor's, added where he thought clarifcation might be useful.]

    One hundred years ago, the comedy short《Stealing the Roast Duck》initiated Hong Kong filmmaking, and from that initial step onto the road, we have gone from silent to sound, from black-and-white to color and widescreen, and now these are coupled with computer graphics.  Along the way, movies have emerged from Hong Kong, from Taiwan, from the Chinese mainland, and then gone out to many corners of the world where they have taken home numerous international awards.  As a Chinese filmmaker, what do I feel truly proud of?

    I entered show business right off the street in 1972, with my first movie《Outside the Window》, and it changed my life forever.  If I averaged, say, one film a year, my career would have stretched out for 100 years.  That career spanned three decades, the 70s, 80s and 90s, and in addition to a film career, it covered three stages of my life.

    In the 1970s it was aesthetic romances.  The 1980s saw social realism and witty comedies.  In the 1990s it martials arts sword films.

    A year after making《Outside the Window》I went to Hong Kong to promote the film, and I found the people there very welcoming.  The media dubbed me the "ingenue". 《Outside the Window》grossed HK$650,000 [US$84,000 at the current exchange rate], a high box office return for an artistic film.  I became famous overnight.

    This screen adaptation of a novel by [Taiwan woman writer] Qiong Yao 琼瑶 [foreign name Chieung Yao, (1938-   )] was popular among both men and women.  After obtaining the movie rights, the film producer signed Qin Han, Chin [Qin] Hsiang-lin, Brigitte Lin and Lin Fengjiao to contracts, leading the media to say this was the era of "the two Qins and the two Lins."  During the time we were filming, I was shooting as many as six scenes a day, so busy I didn't sleep in my own bed for two weeks.  There was one time I fell asleep standing up against a wall, awakened only when the director shouted "Get ready, get ready!", and it was only then I would be startled awake.  When I recall those days now I miss them, demanding as they were.

    Fame brought pressure and long-term exhaustion, to the point where I couldn't bear it any more, so on December 29, 1979 I left the movie world for California, USA, to further my education and enjoy some freedom to spend my time as I chose.  

    During the 15 months I was in the United States, I made《Love Massacre》, a movie directed by Patrick Tam.  Shot entirely in Los Angeles and San Francisco, this film was distinctive, not only because it was very bloody, but because in order to express feelings of coldness or passion, the director shot all the scenes against a blue or a red background.  With this film I entered another stage of my movie career, and my life. 

    Returning to Taiwan in March, 1983, I found the movie industry had undergone a major shift, and artistic films were no longer popular.  Martial law had been lifted, and film censorship had been relaxed to allow a more diversified selection of movies.  In the rest of that decade I tried all genres of films, trying to adapt with the changing times and audiences' tastes in motion pictures.  At first I tried to maintain a reserved attitude, with a few witty comedies, and then I made director Chu Yen-ping's witty and female-oriented action film《Pink Force Commandos》, which set some records at the box office.  From that point on, my movie career left Taiwan and began its roll in Hong Kong.      

    I made Tsui Hark's《Zu:  Warriors From the Magic Mountain》, and after that I was bonded permanently to Hong Kong.  As the times changed, Hong Kong and Taiwan films began doing location shooting on the mainland, and in 1990 I went for the first time to Changchun and Harbin to film《Red Dust》, a love story against a background of the era's turmoil, and this movie brought me my only Golden Horse Best Actress Award.

    In 1992 I made《Swordsman II》as "Invincible Asia," and of the 17 movies I made after that, 11 were martial arts sword films.  With Tsui Hark I made a succession of successful movies,《Peking Opera Blues》,《Dragon Inn》and《Swordman III:  The East Is Red》.  

[right, the author in character as Invincible Asia; and you thought Darth Vader was bad news....]

    So in the 22 years from 1972 to 1994 I went from being a sweet and innocent teenager to playing a sword-wielding man, and witnessed the fluctuating ups and downs of motion picture trends.  I made 100 films, and portrayed 100 characters, but actually Brigitte Lin's most difficult role was playing that of Brigitte Lin. 

The Last Days of Zhou Xuan

[The following is a translation of an article which originally appeared in China's largest-circulation movie magazine.  Any use of the article in further research should cite the original as well as The Chinese Mirror as the source of the translation.  The bibliographic citation for the original article is: Jin, Xingdi 金幸迪. "The Death of Zhou Xuan" (周旋之死) Popular Cinema no.7 (2002), p.44]

[left, Zhou Xuan as the Concubine Zhen in "Secret History of the Qing Court, with Shu Shi as the Emperor Guangxu]

In the 1948 movie "Secret History of the Qing Court" (清宫秘史), there is an important scene in which the Emperor Guangxu and his concubine discuss whether they should go with the Empress Dowager Ci Xi, "the Old Buddha," in fleeing the Chinese capital. For if they do not, and the foreigners come, what would they do then?  There was a significant alteration from the original stage play on which the film is based.  In the play script, the expression used in referring to foreigners in this scene and throughout the play was "foreign devils." However, after screening the movie, the Hong Kong British authorities objected, so the completed film was edited to change every reference to "foreigners."  In the scene, the concubine tells Guang Xu, "And if the foreigners do come, and worse comes to worst, I can only die once!"  This is by no means a traitorous statement:  quite the opposite, it expresses a fragile woman's determination and courage, as well as the patriotic spirit of the film's makers.

In the end, the Emperor Guang Xu fled.  The movie was filmed in a section of Kowloon called Sha Tin (Mandarin:  Shatian).  At that time, Sha Tin was still fairly undeveloped, with only unpaved dirt roads everywhere.  The film's makers recruited young people from the area for crowd scenes, dressed them all in Qing period clothing, and as the actor playing Guang Xu passed, everyone knelt before him. Wearing a lightweight/black gown and a small cap, Guang Xu slowly rode away from his people, as a voice in the background says, "The people had gained paradise, now it was lost".  This line was added by the director Zhu Shilin.  In doing this at just the time when the civil war on the mainland was entering its final phase, with a succession of Communist victories and steady Nationalist retreat, Zhu Shilin's purpose was very clear.  As he had said earlier that year, "Why are we making 'Secret History of the Qing Court'?  With the Nationalists almost finished, I wanted to depict the internal struggles of the Qing court.  After I had written about its internal collapse, I wanted to film the Nationalists' downfall". Zhu Shilin was a highly educated man, a true artist as well as a patriotic intellectual.  He may not have had a profound understanding of Communism at that time, but his writings display a longing for a better world, and an unbending hatred for the dark society of old China.  His addition to the original play script probably stemmed from a desire to insert something of his own hopes into it.

Zhou Xuan was not only a fine actress, she also had a keen fiscal sense.  Although she had a sizable income, and earned quite a bit from record sales, she remained very frugal, very restrained in her spending. But there were times when events in her life would lead her to reconsider her approach to financial matters. She had little life experience, a naive young woman who simply believed whatever others told her, accepting without question what she was told by anyone she trusted.  This may have indirectly contributed to her later tragic fate.  As the director Bai Chen recalls it, during the filming of "Secret History of the Qing Court," Zhou Xuan married a man named Zhang, and became pregnant.  Out of concern that she might lose the baby, she never went out for a walk without using a cane for support, but in the end miscarried anyway. As it turned out, her husband was exploiting her, and this marriage caused her considerable mental damage. Zhou Xuan returned to the mainland after the founding of New China in late 1949, but began suffering from mental illness not long after.

There was another contributing factor to her mental problems:  prior to Liberation, there was a studio head named Zhang Shankun, one of the powers of the film industry.  He owed Zhou Xuan US$6,000, a considerable amount of money at that time. But his own fortunes had taken a downturn, and he lacked the means of repaying the debt, a major blow to Zhou Xuan.  Zhang Shankun wrote to Zhou Xuan, proposing that he book for her a music concert in Southeast Asia.  An astute businessman, Zhang Shankun knew how popular Zhou Xuan was in that area, and believed she could earn a great deal of money from a concert performance, not only enough to cover the debt, but in addition he would pay her HK$20,000 above that.  But Zhou Xuan had already returned to the mainland, with no way of leaving again.

A series of setbacks like this drove Zhou Xuan over the edge.  There were widespread rumors at that time that she had died upon her return to China, but the reality was that she had checked into Shanghai's Hong Qiao [Red Flag] Hospital for treatment, and later went to Beijing for treatment of a pancreatic ailment.  During her time in Beijing, a steady stream of political and governmental figures called on her to offer support.  After this period of treatment, she returned to the Hong Qiao Hospital with her physical condition much improved.  Her doctors suggested that as part of her mental therapy she choose some of her old friends to visit her often to chat, which might help her gradually begin to recollect some events from the past.  So the Shanghai Film Studio agreed to let three of her old colleagues (including fomer co-star Zhao Dan) stay with her for a week at a time each, in turn, and then have her into their own homes as a guest.  As Bai Chen recalls it in his memoirs, when she came to his home, upon her arrival at his street, many of her admirers would come out of their houses to see her.  Each time she visited, these neighbors would have already prerpared her favorite snacks.  While she was now showing more clarity in her thinking, there was still a worrisome slowness in her actions, for example when the guests tried to organize a taping of her greatest record hit, "Song of Four Seasons".  At each of these visits, there would be a reporter present from the New China News Agency to photograph and interview her.  It was this way on probably three occasions. Later, one day when she was at the hospital she suddenly became dizzy.  The diagnosis was that she had meningitis.  She lapsed into a coma, and while she would have occasional periods of lucidity,  and look as if she wanted to speak, she could not.  At last, Zhou Xuan, China's most popular singer of the 1930s and arguably its leading actress of the early sound era, passed away on September 20, 1957, at the age of 39. 

The Early Film Productions of the Commercial Press

[The following is a translation of an article which appeared originally in the publication Film Stories 电影故事, 1995-08, p.55.  The author is Zhu Jiejun 朱杰君, no affiliation given.]

    The Commercial Press is China's oldest publishing house, founded in Shanghai in 1897 by Xia Cuifang 夏粹芳 and and Zhang Yuanji 张元济.  Many know of its reputation as a domestic publishing house, but less widely known is the Commercial Press's history of concurrent large-scale movie production.

    The Commercial Press's entry into movies began in the autumn of 1917, and could be said to be by fortune.  At that time, an American movie entrepreneur brought a huge amount of money to China and founded a motion picture company.  But his lack of understanding of Chinese business methods resulted in all sorts of problems, and after a time he found himself running out money, without having made even one movie.  The American, wanting to sell his equipment in order to recoup some of his losses before leaving, contacted Xie Bing 谢秉, at the time the chief of the Commercial Press communication section, and asked him to broker the resale.  After negotiations, the Press bought all the American's equipment for just under 3,000 yuan.  The Press then hired Ye Xiangrong 叶向荣, a student returned from the US, as its first cinematographer, and began making news shorts.  The first of these was《The Funeral of Sheng Xingsu》, followed by《The American Red Cross Parade》and《The Commercial Press at Work》. 

    In 1918, the Commercial Press sent Bao Qingjia 鲍庆甲 to Europe and the US to inspect the printing and motion picture industries there.  After his return, the Press added to its photography section by establishing a motion picture secion.  With this action, the Press had formally become a motion picture studio.  It reassigned several of employees from other sections to the new section, notably Chen Chunsheng 陈春生, editor of the Press's "Christian News" publication as section chief and head writer, bindery section chief Ren Pengnian 任彭年 as director, and photographic section technician Liao Enshou 廖恩寿 as cinematographer.  From this year forward, the Commercial Press entered upon a wider range of filmmaking activities, with film production divided into five categories:  travelogues, current affairs, education, modern drama and ancient drama.

    In late 1919, a film crew from Universal Pictures in Hollywood came to China to do location shooting, and because of their unfamiliarity with conditions on the ground here, they hired the Commercial Press to assist them on the project, as well as using the Press's equipment to process their film after shooting was finished.  In payment, when it came time for the Universal crew to return to the US, they transferred a large quantity of their photographic and lighting equipment to the Commercial Press, which resulted in a massive upgrade of the publisher's motion picture section's equipment inventory, and the section's name being changed to the "Commercial Press Motion Picture Division."  The following year, the Press sent Yu Houpei 郁厚培 to the US to purchase even more state-of-the-art photographic equipment, while at the same time it erected a spacious glass booth facility on an open space near the Press's main building.  The facility housed technical equipment which permitted filming by day or by night, and can be said to be China's earliest motion picture studio.

    Once its technical equipment was fully installed, the Commercial Press Motion Picture Division further reorganized, and gradually formed a complete unit for the production, distribution, screening and sales of its productions, as well as rental of its photographic equipment to other studios, while also processing the productions of other, smaller studios, for example the China Shadow Play Research Society's docudrama《Yan Ruisheng》and the New Asia Film Company's《Women Skeletons》, for both of which productions the Commercial Press handled the film processing.

    Of the five categories of films produced by the Press, the travelogues were the most extensive in their coverage, encompassing virtually every aspect of China's scenic  and historical sites.  These films of the beautiful rivers and mountains of the motherland, its ancient historical and cultural sites, were very popular with audiences.  In current affairs, there were timely records of some of Shanghai's social activities, such as《March for Victory in the European War》,《6th Asian University Games》and the《5th Asian Games》.