Making their mark in an isolated refuge:
They employed promotional techniques, such as giving away a fan with every ticket to see "New Peach Blossom Fan." Before they released the horror picture, Song in the Dead of Night, they hung enormous, terrifying images of the stars of the pictures in their death throes outside the theater doors, and added the warning, "Please do not bring children to watch this film." This only attracted the attention of the media all the more, and it was a smashing success, running for more than 30 days, becoming the most popular picture of its time and propelling Hsinhua into the ranks of the top five studios in Shanghai.
In 1937 the War of Resistance Against Japan began, and, except for the foreign (Western) concessions, all of Shanghai fell into the hands of the Japanese. So they continued their film production work inside the "isolated island" of the concessions. In order to meet the requirements of the Japanese censors, and at the same time subtly convey anti-Japanese thinking, Hsinhua used the method of "employing the ancient as metaphor for the modern." In films depicting ancient events like Mulan Enlists, they employed the incidents and the words of historical figures to either encourage patriotic sentiment in their viewers or to vilify the traitors who had shamelessly sold out their country. Although this infuriated the Japanese and their Chinese collaborators; there was nothing specific that they could cite as a violation. This made them intolerable.
"During the War of Resistance, the main reason we stayed in Shanghai was in fact to do underground work, to undermine Japanese military propaganda as much as possible," says Tung, today nearly 80. When she talks about those days, her eyes cloud over, and lose their spark.
Who would have thought that their attitude would at that time have invited suspicion from both the Japanese and Chinese? In the end they had no choice but to flee Shanghai and go to Hongkong.
"That was just at the time that the Yunghua Company was at its weakest, and the two major studios that would later come to dominate Hongkong films had not yet prospered. Hsinhua took advantage of this vacuum period and, employing clever promotional techniques, became one of the main forces in Chinese film in the middle 1950s," relates Tsai Kuo-jung, a specialist in modern Chinese artistic films.
Peach blossoms fill the sky: At that time Tung also broke through her previous role as "boss' wife," and formally took over the company's film production.
"The productions at Hsinhua weighed quantity and quality equally, with consideration for both commercial entertainment and artistic value," stressed Ray Jiing, director of the National Film Archive. The most popular films were the series of musicals including Peach Blossom River, Flight of the Phoenix, and The Many Loves of a Wild Cat.
The main characters in these dramas were mostly country girls, women vendors, or actresses in dramatic troupes. The trademark Hsinhua film was a common love story built around these leading characters. Production was simple, and performance techniques were based on traditional Chinese opera or the singing techniques of folk songs. To these were added clever, catchy songs by the basic team of Yao Min, who wrote the music, Chen Tieh-yi, who composed the lyrics, and Yao Li, who sang the vocals offstage. Lin Tai, Chung Ching, and Lin Tsui all became famous under Hsinhua's hand.
Besides these, other major avenues for Hsinhua included artistic love stories (the critically acclaimed "Fire of Love" is a representative work), ancient period dramas and comedies produced purely for profit, and films relating the sacrifices of revolutionary martyrs who died for their country, like Hsiao Feng-hsien. These were also widely recognized as being among the more valuable of Hsinhua works.
Beginning in 1952, the staff at Hsinhua were rivals with the left-leaning Chang Cheng Studios. In October the following year, breaking through a taboo in the Hongkong film community, they organized a group of film artists to visit Taiwan to participate in the October 10 National Day celebrations. Thereafter every year they brought a group of stars to the front lines at Kinmen and Matsu to entertain the troops. When stars like Pai Kuang and Lin Tai appeared amid the bunkers of Kinmen, singing and dancing for the troops, their impact on morale was incalculable.
China's first ever color film was also produced by Hsinhua. In 1955, Hsinhua remade The Hall of the Sea is Red, going to Japan and shooting the whole thing in Eastman color film, a major creative landmark for film at that time. Thereafter, every company rushed in to study color filmmaking, bringing Chinese language films into the color age.
Hongkong - a bastion of free filmmaking:
"Chang Shan-kun really and truly loved films, perhaps too much. He often talked up the most ordinary scripts to make them seem extremely exciting, so that five or six big stars would contend for the parts, and the film would end up being a box-office success," says Tung, giving the credit to her other half.
"Relatively speaking, Mr. Chang's modus operandi was very open and generous. He liked cast-of-thousands films that required large investments. Ms. Tung, on the other hand, was more restrained and prudent, and she paid attention to the efficiency of the expenditures," points out Chen You-hsin, an old-time marquee attraction who often took part in Hsinhua productions. As a result, under their joint direction, Hsinhua had just the right functional balance of boldness and reserve.
In January 1957, while Chang Shan-kun was in Japan filming Song of the Flute on the Silver Sea, he tragically died of a heart attack. Tung then took over the studio and continued to make films. Beginning in the 1960s, Hsinhua still often came to Taiwan to shoot. And used Taiwan stars like Ko Chun-hsiung (Waves Washing the Sand), Lin Feng-chiao(Appointment in the Morning), and Chin Han(I Come From the Mountains). Works of this era clearly inclined toward the small-scale, artistic variety, yet were able to keep up with the fad for sentimental films of the 1970s.
It was only in 1987 that Tung Yue-chuan ended her days at Hsinhua because of advanced age.
A microcosm of the history of Chinese film:
From the age of fire and war to days in exile to the prosperous 1970s and 80s, Tung Yue-chuan never once rested. "Younger sister Tung," widely recognized in the film world as dedicated, sophisticated, and honorable, has already served four consecutive terms as the chairman of the Hongkong-Kowloon Film Freedom Association. In 1980 she was nominated to serve as an Overseas Chinese Control Yuan member for the Republic of China, becoming the first ever female "imperial censor" in Chinese history.
In recent years she has been very active in the work of film collection and preservation. When the National Film Archive was first established, she donated a large number of copies of films, including films now available to the public, like Peach Blossom River, Special Express Train, Little Cabbage, Fire of Love, Song of the Sea, and Golden Phoenix. "As soon as she discovers where some surviving film is, she figures out some way to recover it and send it over," states Ching Ying-juei.
Yet Tung plays down this important contribution. After Hsinhua moved to Hongkong, they were not permitted to save celluloid in homes because the Hongkong government determined that it was an easily combustible commodity. Seeing how small and cramped Hongkong always has been, where could you find the space to collect and store films? "Fortunately, the French Film Materials Museum promised to store them for us, so hundreds of films were sent overseas to France," she reveals. She is working with the French to bring this set of films back to Taiwan as quickly as possible.
Tung Yue-chuan has just turned 80. The Taiwan film world plans birthday celebrations for her, and not only because of her contributions to Chinese movies. It is even more because in her person one can find a microcosm of the history of Chinese film.
[Picture Caption]
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Tung Yue-chuan is one of the matriarchs of the movie world. Already 80, she is still working hard to preserve old films. (photo by Huang Li-li)
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Back then Hsinhua Studios' films had value both as art and commercial entertainment. And so every release was eagerly awaited. (photo courtesy of the National Film Archive)
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