"It was the cartoon that director King Hu wanted to produce before," Yang Hui-wen, program coordinator of the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival as well as organizer of the exhibition "Salute to Masters: Li Han-hsiang, King Hu and Edward Yang," said Nov. 19 while pointing at one of Hu's drawings that could be considered an early foray into TV animation in his filmmaking career. To commemorate the three talented film directors, this year, the TGHFF selected their works as the theme of the exhibition as a way to posthumously recognize their contributions to the industry.
"The impact of director Yang's death earlier this year was felt throughout the industry, and as it also happened to be the 10-year anniversary of Hu's death, we thought there would be no better opportunity to hold the exhibition and seminars during the film festival this year," Yang said.
After she initiated the project in August, Yang started to find similarities between these three directors and, to her surprise, while reviewing boxes of their manuscripts and associated materials, discovered quite a few paintings and handwritten documents that revealed their diverse artistic accomplishments aside from shooting films. This is why the Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee took the initiative to collect these special finds and exhibit them during the festival. "Hopefully the visitors will be able to see these senior directors from a different perspective," she said.
Yang said that a Chinese water painting in the novel "The Golden Lotus"--a classic story about the struggle of three women within a family--looked almost identical to the original illustration by Cao Han-mei, but upon closer inspection, it was actually the work of filmmaker Li. The portrayal of characters from the story on a sheet of paper about two square meters was incredibly delicate and vivid. Even though Yang did not know Li in person, she said that work on such a scale proved Li's solid artistic foundation and innate talents.
Seventy-seven-year-old actor Lee Kwan, who used to act in Li's movie, told Yang that as he could recall, in director Li's 20s, he was a very observant person and liked to make sketches of people who were around him. One time, the director produced a portrait of Lee while they were working together and gave it to him as a gift. He valued it very much as a token of their friendship and kept it carefully in his home.
Born in Liaoning Province in China in 1926, Li studied at the department of painting in Beijing National Art College and moved to Hong Kong in 1948 before coming to Taiwan in 1955 to develop a career in filmmaking. Growing up in the northern part of China, he had more exposure to the palace culture that contributed to his later series of historic movies with grand and glorious settings. Stories about famous influential women in Chinese history like Xi Shih, Diao Chan, Yang Yu-huan and Empress Wu of the Tang dynasty were included in his work. According to Peggy Chiao, senior movie reviewer who also serves as the head of 2007 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee, the female characters in Li's work possessed feminine ideas and dared to challenge traditional convention and restraints to establish their subjectivity.
Li's dramas not only showcased feminine beauty, but also introduced a greater range of filming methodology while serving as a training ground for young directors in Taiwan. Yang said that the organizers selected some films supervised by Li and directed by junior directors like Sung Chuen-sau to screen in the festival. Movies like "At Dawn" and "Many Enchanting Nights" were chosen to refresh the audience's memory of the 1960s. What is of more importance, Yang added, is the contribution Li made to the film industry. "Li introduced the studio system to Taiwan and supervised many young directors at that time," she said.
Under Li's supervision, the first part of the tetralogy "Four Moods" was completed and the rest finished by other directors, including Hu. Differing from Li's romantic style, Hu was well known for his martial-arts movies after "Dragon Inn" and "A Touch of Zen" became box-office hits. "A Touch of Zen" even made him the first director of a Taiwanese film to show at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001. The picture of his attendance at the award ceremony with actress Hsu Feng is exhibited to help refresh memories of that special occasion.
Hu's love of motion and desire to bring "Victory at the Sea" to the small screen is evident in his early drawings. "He had designed the model and settings on paper already," Yang said. She explained that while searching for more of Hu's work at the Chinese Taipei Film Archive office in Shulin, she discovered a huge number of drawings and documents in the archived boxes.
"Hundreds of sketches featuring political figures are included in exhibition," Yang added, from Western political leaders like Bill and Hillary Clinton to China's former leader Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) in the East. Even though their facial features were not depicted in detail, Hu captured Clinton's hand gestures and the frowning on Ronald Reagan's face. The filmmaker also wrote articles for a magazine Touch in Hong Kong, sharing his experience of participating in the Tokyo and Kyoto film festivals. Sometimes Hu would add several lines to recommend restaurants nearby where he enjoyed exotic cuisine after work. "These exhibits help visitors to understand the daily life of the director," Yang said.
As with Hu, director Edward Yang--renowned for examining urban life in his films and establishing the genre of "Taiwan New Wave"--was a lover of restaurants. His dark comedy "A Confucian Confusion" features a scene where two Taiwanese urbanite women meet in a Western-style eatery wearing the latest fashions. According to Yang Hui-wen, to ensure the wardrobe was in keeping with the big-city style of the day, the director designed items such as a woman's open blouse and fitted pants with high-heel shoes. These sketches are on display, along with a collection of animation drafts laying out the movie Yang would have produced with Jackie Chan named "The Wind."
Yang Hui-wen admitted organizers encountered difficulties in collecting material for the exhibition because some of the directors had not lived in Taiwan before they passed away. With their relatives entrusting friends to take care of the items, it is extremely difficult to make initial contact. Yang said that Chiao thus insisted on choosing a standard venue to uncover some once-in-a-life-time treasures, eventually agreeing on the Taipei-based Shin Kong Art Museum with its glass cabinets and audio-visual equipment. "We welcome people from all walks of life to come and take a walk down memory lane," Yang said. "Some come for the experience, some look for surprises, but for many, this is an opportunity to learn more about these three filmmaking heroes."
Write to Sandra Shih at sandrashih@mail.gio.gov.tw