The Chinese Mirror

Pingjiang Buxiaosheng and Martial Arts Fiction

[right, Pingjiang Buxiaosheng, photo undated]

In the 2008 hit animated movie “Kung Fu Panda,” the slacker title character is redeemed through martial arts.  The same could be said of the author of the literary source of “Burning of the Red Lotus Temple,” the  silent movie series we have been discussing this week.  An earlier post related how Mingxing’s chief director Zhang Shichuan discovered the book that he and his frequent collaborator Zheng Zhengqiu turned into Part I of the classic series of wuxia films, “Burning of the Red Lotus Temple.”  In this article we look at the life and career of Pingjiang Buxiaosheng 平江不肖生 , the pen name of Xiang Kairan 向恺然, prolific 1920s author of wuxia fiction.  Among his works was a novel (originally a newspaper serial) titled Strange Swordsman Story (Jianghu Qi Xia Zhuan 江湖奇侠传), which was the plot basis for Part I of the film series. “Jianghu,” literally “rivers and lakes,” is a Chinese idiom meaning “everywhere in the country.”  “Zhuan” the last word in the title, can be translated as “story,” as I have done here, or alternatively, “legend.”

A Lakeside Dream (1927): Tian Han and the Psychological Romance

   In the late 1920s some of the more avant garde filmmakers experimented with making romances that probed the psyches of their principal male characters.  These characters were dramatists, college students, poets, etc., characters with artistic or scholarly achievements, but tending to be overly romantic and sentimental, therefore easily exploited.   After his frustrating experience with Go to the People, Tian Han was eager to try again at filmmaking, as well as let out some of those leftover frustrations.

[above, Tian Han]   

Although "A Lakeside Dream" was Tian Han's first successful venture into motion pictures, before it was released, he remarked that he considered it experimental, unlikely to make any money.  It seems to have been an emotional catharsis for Tian, whose protagonist, the frustrated dramatist Sun Bijiang, was a vague representation of Tian himself.  Tian was heavily influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis, in fact uncritically accepting of Freudian theory, and before writing this screenplay he immersed himself in researching the behavior of those involved in sado-masochistic relationships. -- [Tian, Han.  Yingshi zhui huai lu  影事追怀录 (Movie Memories).  Beijing:  China Film Press, 1981, p.83.] 

Hubian Chunmeng (1927) 湖边春梦 (A Lakeside Dream)

    Mingxing.  B&W.  Silent.  9 reels.  Premiered October 9, 1927 at the Palace.  Direction:  Bu Wancang.  Screenplay and program notes:  Tian Han.  Cinematography:  Dong Keyi, Shi Shiqing.  Sets:  Dong Tianya.  Cast: Gong Jianong (Sun Bijiang), Yang Naimei (Li Qibo), Xiao Ying (Peng Feixiong), Tang Jie (stage manager), Mao Jianpei (Fei Cuixian), Lin Zhusan (Huang the director), Huang Junpu (the clown), Wang Mengshi (Ma Weifu), Wang Xianzhai (first performer), Gao Lihen (second performer), Dong Xiangping (third performer).

     Playwright Sun Bijiang has a falling out with his protegée actress Fei Cuixian over her playgirl lifestyle. 

[Gong Jianong chides actress Mao Jianpei about her playgirl ways]

To get over it, he takes a holiday trip to West Lake at Hangzhou, and on the train meets Peng Feixiong and his wife Li Qibo, a strangely mismatched married couple.  The three are staying at the same lakeside inn, and as they become more  acquainted, the dramatist and the wife, Li Qibo,  begin an affair.

 [right, Sun meets a strange couple:  Xiao Ying, left; Yang Naimei, right]

    But it turns out she is a sadist, and as part of their daily lovemaking demands he allow himself to be bound and whipped.  After his initial shock, he finds to his surprise he enjoys it. 

[left, his new lover shows Sun a new way to have fun and games]

During one of their outdoor sessions, a gang of bandits sets upon them and abducts Li; but when Sun awakens he pursues them, kills the bandit chieftain and rescues her, despite being badly wounded.  He awakens in the hospital to hear a doctor saying, "You're pretty lucky:  you've had a fever and been delirious, but you'll be all right".  It had all been a dream.  But what did it mean? Were these his true, his innermost desires?

                                                         [right, a romantic dream of heroism]

Go to the People (1927): Tian Han and the Southern Film Society

    Tian Han 田汉 (1898-1968) was one of the leading Chinese intellectuals of the first half of the last century:  dramatist, opera scenarist, stage and screen scriptwriter, author of fiction, poet, lyricist, literary and art critic, social activist … Tian Han did it all.  Unlike the parade of young filmmakers at that time from bourgeois or upper-class backgrounds, Tian Han was born in 1898 to a poor peasant family in a village near Changsha, Hunan.  Again unlike so many of his contemporaries, Tian did not return to China after extensive post-graduate study and travel in Europe or the U.S., although he did have three years of graduate study in Tokyo. 
    Upon his return to China in 1922, he settled in Shanghai and taught at two universities there, while also devoting himself to script writing.  In 1924 Tian and his wife founded a literary journal, and the following year he joined with four other young overseas returnees to found the Southern Dramatic Society (南国剧社) to stage progressive plays.  In 1926, Tian founded the Southern Film Society (南国影社) to extend their ideas to the screen, then wrote and directed the society's first movie effort:

Dao Minjian Qu (1927)--unfinished 到民间去 (Go to the People)

    Southern Film Society.  B&W.  Silent.  Filmed between April, 1926 and January, 1927.  Direction and Screenplay:  Tian Han.  Cast:  Wu Jiaxiang, Tang Huaiqiu, Yi Su, Tang Lin, Gu Menghong, Ye Dingluo, Jiang Guangchi, Li Jinfa, Zhong Zitong, Boris Piniek.

    Tian Han’s script, which narrates the story of two university students, was inspired by a poem by the Meiji Era poet Ishikawa Takuboku  石川 啄木 (1886-1912).  Unfortunately, a shortage of funds resulted in the project’s early termination.  The Japanese cinematographer, name unrecorded, returned home taking the negatives in lieu of the payment owed him.  Tian Han later commented that “A year’s hard work and maximum effort by everyone still wasn’t enough”.  It is interesting to note that none of the actors listed in the cast appear in standard Chinese film references, so may have been strictly stage actors from the Southern Dramatic Society, or perhaps amateurs.

Hou Yao (1903-1942): a martyred patriot

    Although his life was tragically short, Hou Yao 候曜 (Cantonese:  Hau Yiu) was one of China's most talented and creative screenwriters and directors of the silent era.  (We will look at some of his specific films and contributions in future posts.)  Born in Panyu, Guangdong, in 1903, Hou originally trained for a teaching career.  But after graduating from Nanjing Normal School in 1922, and completing two years of graduate school, the attention attracted by his writings on film and drama led to his hiring in 1924 by the newly-established Changcheng [Great Wall] Motion Picture Company as director and head of scriptwriting.  In 1926 he joined the Minxin studio as chief writer and director, and head of its film school.  Later, he became the head of Minxin's Beijing branch studio.  In 1933, with the coming of sound, Hou moved to Hong Kong to join the emerging Cantonese movie industry.  In addition to continuing his writing, he founded the Wenhua [Culture] Film Company, which he managed until 1938 when he moved to the Nanyang [South Seas] studio.  In his writing and his film and theater work, he was an outspoken advocate of resistance to Japanese aggression, which put him on the enemy's most-wanted list.  Learning his life was in danger from enemy agents and collaborators in Hong Kong, he fled to Singapore, but when that city fell in early 1942 he was arrested by the Japanese army and publicly beheaded in the city's downtown, one of the many thousands of Singapore Chinese civilians slaughtered at that time.
*********************************
Filmography:
1924:
The Divorcee [aka Abandoned Wife]  (co-director, writer, original play)
1925:
Cupid's Puppets  (co-director)
Woman Picking the Stars [aka Between Love and Filial Duty]  (writer)
The Person in the Boudoir Dream  (writer)
1926:
The Hypocrite  (director, writer)
The God of Peace  (director, writer)
A String of Pearls  (screen adaptation)
1927:
The Cape Poet  (director, writer)
A Reviving Rose  (co-director, co-writer, original play)
Romance of the West Chamber  (director screen adaptation)
The Old Man in the Moon Divorces  (director, co-writer)
1928:
Mulan Joins the Army  (director, writer)
Romance on the Battlefield  (director, writer)
1932:
New Grievances in the Imperial Palace  (director, writer)
1933:
The Fool Pays Respects  (director, writer)
 1937:
The Desert Flower  (director, writer)
The Forces Withing  (original work)
Romance of the Pearl River  (director, writer, original story)
1938:
Incident in the Pacific  (director, actor, writer, original story)
The Purple Cups  (director, writer)
Fortress of Flesh and Blood [aka Provoking Father]  (actor, director, writer)
The Second Marriage of Madam [aka Son vs. Mother]  (director)
The Wrong Couple  (director)
Shaking Heaven and Earth  (director, writer)
Fallen Angel  (director, writer)
1939:
The Ugly Empress  (co-director, co-writer)
Master Keung  (co-director, co-writer)
Incident on Turtle Mountain  (co-director, co-writer)
The Filial Son and the Unworthy  (co-director, co-writer)
Daughter vs. Stepmother  (co-director, co-writer)
1940:
The Chinese Tarzan  (co-director, co-writer)

The Beginnings of Film Literature: Hong Shen and the Screenplay

    The earliest Chinese movies were filmed without a script, just a story  outline, with the actors largely ad-libbing the progress of the plot.  This began to change at the beginning of the 1920s with the appearance of "Yan Ruisheng."  In addition to being China's first full-length motion picture, it marked several other "firsts."  Although filmed without a complete script, it was one of the first two Chinese films to have a published "synopsis."  This kind of synopsis consisted of two parts:  the first included a basic plot and the main characters and their actions; the second had "intertitles," which consisted of dialogues and explanations.  This was the model Chinese filmmakers followed until 1925.
    In that year, the Shanghai periodical "Eastern Magazine" (东方杂志) published the first screenplay in Chinese, "Mrs. Shentu" (Shentu Shi 申屠氏 ), relating the story of a woman seeking revenge on her husband.  It was never actually filmed, as the scenarist, a Harvard-educated young Chinese named Hong Shen 洪深 , was unable to obtain the necessary financial backing.  That is not surprising, considering the screenplay had 592 scenes in all, divided into 7 large sections.  But  it is still a landmark in Chinese movie history, as the first script to actually be a screenplay, including instructions for scene changes, camera angles, etc., and employing such new film terminology as "fade in," "pan," etc.  So although it never went before the camera, it took Chinese film history to a new stage by providing a new type of film literature, one intended for publication and reading as well as providing filming guidelines.

Bao Tianxiao and "The Soul of Yuli" (1924)

A Representative MDB Film:  "The Soul of Yu Li"

    As stated in the last post, one of the most popular early MDB films was 1924's "The Soul of Yu Li" (Yu Li Hun 玉梨魂), adapted from a very popular novel of the same name, by Xu Zhenya 徐枕亚 (1889-1937).  With adaptation for the screen by Zheng Zhengqiu and direction by Zhang Shichuan, it became another big hit for the Mingxing studio after "An Orphan Saves his Grandfather," and like "Orphan" it also starred Wang Hanlun and had a woman's misfortune as its main selling point.
                                                                                             [right, Xu Zhenya]

Yu Li Hun (1924) 玉梨魂 (The Soul of Yu Li)
alternate English title: The Death of Yu Li

Mingxing. B&W. Silent. 10 reels. Premiered September 11, 1924 at the Embassy Theater in Shanghai. Direction: Zhang Shichuan, Xu Hu. Screenplay: Zheng Zhengqiu, adapted from the novel of the same title by Xu Zhenya (1889-1937). Cinematographer:  Wang Xiangchang.  Cast: Wang Hanlun (widow Li), Wang Xianzhai (He Mengxia), Yang Naimei (Cui Yunqian), Zheng Zhegu (Qin Shichi), Huang Junfu (Fang Dayuan), Ren Chaojun (Cui Penglang).