Director Hsin Chi and the Golden Age of Taiwanese Cinema

Many Taiwanese will remember how a TV serial called The Seven Swords of Hsilo kept their eyes glued to the screen. This popular Taiwanese-language serial was crafted behind the scenes by director Hsin Chi, who today, at the age of 76, has received a special Lifetime Achievement Award at the 37th Golden Horse cinema awards.

Looking back on the history of film in Taiwan, director Li Hsing, who chaired the Golden Horse executive committee this year, said at a press conference that the past social environment in Taiwan brought forth many good directors, and that before going into the movie business many of the older generation, including Hsin Chi, had worked in the theater. With their strong grounding in drama they had laid down an excellent foundation for the Taiwanese-language films of the 1960s and 70s; they had also brought on many outstanding performers.

Regular cast members in Hsin Chi's films included Chin Mei, the most popular leading lady in Taiwanese-language films of that time; and stalwarts such as actress Kao Hsin-chih and actors Shih Ying and Lin Chi-feng. Taiwanese superstar Ko Chun-hsiung played the male lead in Hsin's film Bride in Hell, which was adapted from the Western romantic novel Mistress of Mellyn. Other well-known actors such as Liu Ching, Wang Man-chiao, Chin Tu, Ai-tsu Tsai, Chou Yu and Tai Pei-shan have all worked happily with Hsin Chi at one time or another. Chin Mei and director Tsai Yang-ming, who were among the guests of honor at December's Golden Horse awards ceremony, and who love to reminisce about the good old days, said with obvious pride: "Actors of that generation almost never had to repeat takes!"

Strict director, versatile actors

A difficult environment was actually more likely to produce outstanding actors. "The film we used for Taiwanese-language movies in those days was generally imported, or bought on the black market. One movie required around 800 shots on average. With the high cost of film, we couldn't afford to waste it. Also, we were making so many movies-around 100 a year-that the time spent filming each was very short, about three days per movie. There was no time to gradually feel your way into a role. The actors had to be extremely flexible, and there was next to no scope for fluffing a scene." Recalling his experiences filming at the studios in Taipei's northern suburb of Peitou, Hsin Chi tells how actors would shuttle between different sets, playing a different role on each. Every one of them was totally immersed in their craft.

Among his many regular actors and actresses, the one Hsin Chi worked with most was Chin Mei. Recalling Hsin Chi's directing style, she recounts that he was famous for his strictness, and when shooting he would not speak or make jokes lightly. All the actors were somewhat in awe of him. Lin Chi-feng, who often played the male lead in Hsin's films, jokes that Hsin was a short-tempered director, and that of all the actors who worked with him, he (Lin) was the only one not to get a dressing down from him.

"Directing is easy-acting is harder." Hsin Chi once had the opportunity to play a guest role in a TV drama directed by Lin Fu-ti. After being rebuked for forgetting his lines, he finally realized the difficulties faced by actors. "After that, I didn't tell people off any more!" he says with a laugh.

Hsin Chi's career in screen and stage drama has been a very rich one. He has filmed at the Shaw Brothers studios in Hong Kong, and was much admired by Sir Run Run Shaw (1, left). Some of Hsin Chi's most popular works were the movies Tragic Love at Kuantsuling (2), Three Voices of Frustration (3), and the TV dramas Kungfu Master (4) and The Seven Swords of Hsilo. (courtesy of Chinese Taipei Film Archive)

Stories in the stones

Before receiving the Golden Horse award, Hsin Chi returned to the Peitou studios, which were once called "Taiwan's Hollywood." Although the sets he worked on in the old days no longer exist, Hsin could not hide his sense of joy.

"Look! We used to film here. . . ." With head bowed, rubbing his hand across a massive boulder lined with cracks, Hsin Chi could not suppress an innocent smile. Back then, Peitou's Yingpin and Meihua Pavilions were spots where many in the movie world liked to film. Lin Chi-feng recalls that he once spent a whole year filming in Peitou.

As well as directing, Hsin was also often involved in writing screenplays. For him, details of life that most people might overlook could be the stuff of a superb movie scene. He might use the space behind the boulder to create suspense, or it might become a place where male and female characters pursue each other in love.

"You know what? Directing is a job given by God, the spirits, or the Bodhisattva, so of course you have to give it your best!" After leaning against the boulder lost in thought for a moment, with his head propped up on one hand, Hsin Chi suddenly comes out with these few simple words which exquisitely explain his lifelong dedication to film and drama.

Stage, cinema, TV

Hsin Chi was a key figure in promoting Taiwan's home-grown film industry in the early days. He was born in Taipei's Wanhua district in 1924, and studied drama in Japan. In the years following Taiwan's 1945 return to Chinese rule, he was very much involved in theater activities, and was stage manager for plays such as Arhat Society and Banana Flavor. In 1956, he wrote his first screenplay in Taiwanese, Rainy Night Flowers, and also set up the Chunghsing Taiwanese Experimental Theater Troupe. In 1964 his movie Please Forgive Me took the best film prize at the ROC-Made Taiwanese-Language Film Festival, and Lost Love Highway took the prize for best screenplay; the same year, Hsin Chi was voted one of the ten best directors by cinema audiences. In 1971 Hsin Chi switched to working in television, and directed TV serials for all of the then three main TV stations. The program Loving Hearts which he directed in 1978 won a Golden Bell award for best educational or cultural program.

Hsin Chi's distinguished career in film and theater has included three main phases: his early period in the theater, his time in Taiwanese-language cinema, and his transfer into television drama-a move forced on him by the decline of Taiwanese-language films. Hsin Chi says of these three very different media: "In the theater, what counts is the interaction with the live audience; in the cinema, we attempt to arouse a response in the audience through suspense and the overall audiovisual effect; but in TV drama we are careful to use visual narrative techniques which enable people at home to pick up the storyline again immediately if they fetch something from the fridge or go to the toilet."

Hsin Chi's rich career in these three areas of drama is far from being his only achievement. In 1997 Hsin, who is an asthma sufferer himself, set up the Association of Asthmatics ROC, and together with many of his colleagues from his days in cinema organized the Association for Taiwanese Filmmakers and Actors, to enable people who worked in Taiwanese cinema in the early days to take care of each other. "Once when I was very ill I was just waiting to die, but later I realized that we have to do our best to keep forging ahead, as long as ever we can!" After he got together with his old coworkers, Hsin Chi's sense of mission in the dramatic arts was gradually revived.

Dramatic aspirations

"His cinematic philosophy is one of unflagging concern for people's lives, and criticism of the status quo." Veteran director Chen Te-li, a faithful friend and confidante of Hsin Chi from the early days of Taiwanese cinema, speaks of his old collaborative partner with evident excitement: "He went through a lot because of politics, but this also helped him understand life, so he insists on reflecting the life of ordinary people on screen."

Hsin Chi is very much the intellectual, but also believes strongly in putting his ideals into practice. Before he got into cinema, as an enthusiastic, idealistic youth he organized a youth culture association together with a group of partners. From time to time they staged theatrical performances, which they used as a vehicle for political campaigning. Before Taiwan returned to Chinese rule, the content of their performances generally insinuated anti-Japanese sentiment, which got them into a certain amount of trouble. Later, under Chinese rule, Hsin Chi's penchant for direct satire on current affairs again attracted the attention of security agencies.

Hsin Chi recalls how at that time he co-produced the play The Wall, which was put on by Sung Fei-wo, who had been a prominent figure in the political theater movement under Japanese rule. Because the play used double entendres to suggest that the government was not taking care of the people, Hsin came under "special scrutiny," so he fled to Xiamen, where he spent a difficult time alone and in poverty, suffering both sickness and hunger. Later he returned to Taiwan, and again set up an experimental theater troupe with artistic friends. They put on the play Banana Flavor, which alludes to the 1947 February 28th Incident. But when the play was performed in Chungshan Hall, fights broke out between mainlanders and locals in the audience, and next day Taipei mayor Yu Mi-chien banned further performances. After a friend secretly tipped him off, Hsin Chi again fled to Xiamen, to begin his second period of forced exile. "When someone came in the middle of the night to tell me I had to go and do some filming, I knew straight away I was in trouble."

When talking about those difficult days, Hsin Chi says magnanimously that looking on the bright side, they were of great help for his later film career, because his special life experiences opened his eyes to the plight of the working class. From 1956 onward, Hsin Chi's career turned from the stage to Taiwanese-language cinema, and the main themes of his creative work also gradually shifted from political satire to reflecting concern for the lives of ordinary people.

Back street life

"I like to use material which portrays the struggles of ordinary people to overcome difficulties, and I also prefer to pay attention to the voice of the less privileged." Among the many films in Taiwanese directed by Hsin Chi, probably the most representative is Life in the Back Streets, which he made in 1966.

Life in the Back Streets portrays a group of people who have fallen through the cracks of Taiwan's economic transformation, and who all live around the same traditional courtyard. Through the amusing events that happen there, in a camera language which emphasizes decline and decay yet nonetheless remains humorous, Hsin Chi presents a vivid picture of working-class people in dire straits, including a lonely old man, a drunkard and a poor girl contracted as a live-in prostitute by two men. These characters seem to live mediocre and unambitious lives, but they have warm and generous natures. Through the ordinary little things that happen in their everyday contacts and interaction, they show their mutual affection and their willingness to stick together through thick and thin.

Among the things people remember most about the film are also some episodes reflecting the political atmosphere of the times. For instance, one of the two men who share the girl has her on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and the other on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. This was intended to satirize the film censors who often made life difficult for movie makers, and who were organized into two teams, one of which made inspections on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and the other on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

"Many scenes which reflected sensitive issues of the time may sound totally innocuous today, but back then they would bring knowing chuckles from audiences." Hsin Chi says with a laugh that the way stories picked up on things people were angry about but dared not speak out over, created a mutually consoling sense of shared experience between actors and audience. "All the villains in the films had names which sounded like those of widely despised city and county councilors, and this would send audiences into fits of laughter." Skilful use of comic techniques created suspense, and also communicated the volatile moods of ordinary people in politically difficult times. Talking about his passion for integrating social concern into his films, he says with sudden elation, "Making movies is a social mission!"

Men without a motherland

To date Hsin Chi has made over 90 films in Taiwanese, and has achieved much. Yet he has one wish that has never been fulfilled. "I've got a screenplay called Men Without a Motherland, which I've been longing to film."

After Taiwan returned to Chinese rule, Hsin Chi, who was passionately involved in political campaigning and in the theater, was sought out one day by a man who had been designated a war criminal by the United Nations, and who begged Hsin to speak out on his behalf. It was then that this screenplay began to take shape in his mind.

During World War II, many Taiwanese were drafted into the Japanese forces and sent off to fight in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, and after the war ended many were left stranded there. They were not only exiled and destitute, but were also classed as war criminals by both the Japanese and ROC governments. "The Japanese didn't want them, and the ROC government didn't want them either. They didn't know which country to call home." Hsin Chi poignantly describes the pain of many at not being able to find their way back home amid the turmoil of those troubled times. He has long felt that his beloved cinematic mission will only be complete if he can one day film the story of these "men without a motherland."

"Sadly, filming war scenes costs a lot of money, and now I'm old and in poor health. Up till now this screenplay of mine has always stayed at the bottom of the drawer, as if sentenced to death," says Hsin Chi with a forlorn expression on his face. For an old director who sees making movies as a way of putting humanitarian values into practice, this is a cause for lifelong regret.

Frustrating times

As well as Hsin Chi's regrets at not being able to film Men Without a Motherland, the decline of Taiwanese-language films was also a great setback to his hopes. "Prospects once looked very good for films in Taiwanese, but a lot of people in the industry were only interested in turning a fast buck, and didn't have ideals for the cinema. If a film starring A-Hsi did well at the box office, then everyone jumped on the bandwagon and started churning out copycat films featuring A-Hsi. When audiences got to see the same plot in every film, why would they want to watch any more? After this went on for a while, Taiwanese-language films started to go downhill." Recalling the key period in the decline of Taiwanese-language films, Hsin Chi says with frustration that today films in Mandarin, and Hong Kong films, seem to be going the same way.

Hsin admits frankly that for reasons of funding, he directed racy films in the past, and also made martial arts films although this was not his forte. During the decline of Taiwanese-language films, he turned to making films in Mandarin, and even imitated the cinematic techniques of Hu Chin-chuan, one of the prominent directors of that era. But after three or four such films, he felt that the many stunts and special effects needed were too much effort, so he gave up. Although the frustration of this period in his career is still fresh in Hsin's mind, his great love of the movie business enables him to see the funny side. "When I shot blue movies, I did them as comedy too!" laughs the veteran director, standing in the windswept Yingpin Pavilion and looking out over the far-off streets.

Back to history

"To work in drama you need to have a love of Taiwan." In recent years, Hsin Chi has begun to assist the Chinese Taipei Film Archive in its work of collecting materials on the history of Taiwanese movies, to illuminate the relationship between the island's history and the development of its cinema. This experience of revisiting the past reawakened the concern for Taiwanese society which imbued his early work in the theater, so he once again got involved in the theater, and injected the vital energy accumulated from the rich experiences of his life into the play Ancient Capital. The piece portrays the interplay of Taiwanese and Japanese cultures, with two young actresses dressed in kimonos playing twin sisters who suffer different fates in life. "Stage drama is very close to the audience, so it merges right into the lives of ordinary people." His already gray hair now turning silver, Hsin Chi returns to history to draw sustenance from it. As a child, he had the happy experience of squatting among audiences watching plays on outdoor stages, and this was a scene he had vividly in mind when he was directing Ancient Capital. "We of the older generation have rich historical material to draw on. If we can get technical support from young people, we can make first-class Taiwanese films which tell the rich and moving story of the Taiwanese people!" Hsin Chi's passion for Taiwan has rekindled his cinematic dreams.