Most film workers consider the movies both art and industry. To Henry Kung, general manager of the Central Motion Picture Corporation, that is just the beginning. Says he: "Love is what makes life worth living; it is the starting point of all that is good and beautiful. If man renounces love, he is doomed." In his opinion, the movies have the important role of enhancing love as a great human value. He urges his co-workers to "Get up and speak to our audiences through this medium!"
Henry Kung has sought to practice what he preaches. For several years, CMPC has tended to eschew the surefire box office hits. It could have concentrated on historical epics in color, the spy stories and knight-errantry tales, and the light musicals. Instead it has kept sound stages and location crews busy on a succession of features depicting the life of ordinary people and the joys of the countryside. Heroes and heroines have been farmers and fishermen. Story lines have concerned parents and children, husbands and wives, and those who defend what is right. CMPC pictures have not always been exciting or comedies; they have always conveyed a message of hope.
Such realistic film making has won international recognition for CMPC. The "Beautiful Duckling" won the best picture award at the 12th Asian Film Festival. Since then have come such other outstanding vehicles as "Orchids and My Love", "Days of Cheer and Sorrow", and "The Silent Wife", which had a long run in Hongkong and will be shown at the Berlin Film Festival.
CMPC's policy has paid off at the box office, too. The earnings of Asian-made pictures are notoriously low. But CMPC has passed US$200,000 with the recent "Fire Bulls" and is still going strong. "The Silent Wife" earned US$175,000 and "Beautiful Duckling" US$162,500. One of the first features of the revived CMPC, "Oyster Girl", did US$150,000.
Henry Kung thinks his bid to put more love in life should now move from the countryside into urban society, just as are the people of Taiwan. He is looking for new ideas and a fresh approach to compete with the escapist style of many Chinese movies. The answer is not trickery, he maintains, but better stories, better scripts, and better acting.
CMPC has two new sound stages, raising its total to four. This makes the studio one of the biggest in the Far East. It is now equipped to do its own color processing. Three production teams are working on the 1967-68 shooting schedule of 12 features.
Tang Pao-yun, left, one of free China's best actresses, stars in "Lonely 17". (File photo)
Among these are "Lonely 17", attempting to probe the mind of a girl who is still a child yet also a woman. Miss Tang Pao-yun is playing the girl and Pai Ching-jui is directing. Pai said unique use will be made of light and shadow. Miss Pei Lun, who has been playing in Amoy-dialect films, has joined CMPC (which makes its movies in the Mandarian dialect) for a musical "The Song of Life". Other upcoming releases include "The Road", the tragic "Offering to the Sea", a comedy, "The Honeymoon", a couple of historical dramas, and "Happy Homecoming", which brings daughters back to their parents.
CMPC films are shown in Hongkong, Singapore, and other cities of Southeast Asia. U.S. distribution for college and art theater showings is in the hands of a drama teacher in San Francisco.
A new CMPC building in the West Gate theater district will house a theater, department store, hotel, night club, and offices. The eight-story structure is costing US$1 million.
The Central Motion Picture Corporation is the leader of the Taiwan Mandarin film industry, which is turning out 50 features a year plus newsreels and documentaries.
Study of Science
Dr. Wang Shih-chieh, president of the Academia Sinica, returned from two conferences in the United States at the end of April. He said the scientific progress of Taiwan is encouraging American organizations to stretch out a helping hand.
Dr. Wang explained the Republic of China's need for more stress on science education and for help in developing research facilities.
A Sino-American economic cooperation conference to be held in Taipei June 19-23 will have scientific overtones, he said.
Vocational Education
Taiwan's rapid industrialization has greatly increased the need for skilled workers and technicians. Establishment of a number of vocational schools has not ended the shortage.
Government's newest approach to the problem will be to reduce the number of students admitted to already overcrowded high schools that offer standard pre-college academic courses. Presumably those who do not get into the regular high schools will enroll in the vocational institutes.
Enrollment in vocational schools now totals about 650,000 versus 1,000,000 at ordinary high schools. The Ministry of Education would like to strike a balance between the figures.
Visiting Howard P. Jones, chancellor of the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, said more scholarships can be offered to Chinese students in technical fields. Jones said that of Chinese students earning advanced degrees at Hawaii, more than 9 out of 10 have returned to Taiwan. This is contrary to the brain drain that has left many of Taiwan's most able young people in the United States. One hundred and eighteen Taiwan students have earned such degrees at Hawaii.
A group of vocational school principals and teachers soon will go to West Germany to look into vocational education in that country. The Germans will sponsor a seminar for the visitors. Announcement of the plan was made by Pan Chen-chew, commissioner of the provincial department of education, upon his return from West Germany.
Literature Day
Literature Day was marked May 4 at a Taipei City Hall gathering of 1,000 writers and government officials. Thirteen awards were presented, five of them to women.
Speakers called attention to the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement, and contrasted it with the tyrannical, oppressive "great proletarian cultural revolution" on the Chinese Communist-held mainland. Mainland intellectuals were urged to continue their valiant struggle against Communism.
Novelist Lin Yutang spoke on China's most famous novel, The Dream of the Red Chamber, the authorship of which long has been in dispute. Some critics maintain that Tsao Hsueh-ch'in wrote only the first two thirds of the book and that Kao O wrote the last 40 chapters.
Lin Yutang said a 20-year study of the early 18th century novel, including examination of the calligraphy in manuscripts, has convinced him that Tsao is the sole author.
As for the novel itself, Lin Yutang, who is China's leading author writing in English, said it is the country's outstanding work of fiction, shows great creative imagination, has a good plot, and is entertaining.
The research into the authorship is important, he maintained, because without the last 40 chapters, the novel becomes a trivial recitation of events and properties in the lives of a privileged wealthy group. He said it is the last third of the book dealing with the disintegration of the family and the fate of the lovers that lifts the book to greatness.
Lin Yutang rates the book as one of the world's 10 greatest novels, standing alongside such a giant as War and Peace. He said he has read it so many times -partly as a textbook in practicing Mandarin dialect - that he can come close to reciting whole sections. He has done the only full translation into English but has declined publication because the slow plot development discourages English-language readers. He is contemplating publication in the form of a series of short novels, each a story in itself.
The talk was illustrated with slides of the manuscripts with which Lin worked in seeking to identify the authorship beyond question.
On the mainland, The Dream of the Red Chamber and many other classics of Chinese literature have been burned as reflections of the bourgeois way of life.
Mona Lisa Smiles
Art lovers saw copies of 86 of Leonard da Vinci's paintings and sketches at the National Historical Museum in May. The Mona Lisa drew the largest crowds.
The da Vinci exhibition was sponsored by UNESCO to mark the 500th anniversary of the Italian painter's birth. After a week's showing in Taipei, the copies were shown in southern Taiwan, then moved on to another of the 60 countries where they will be seen this year.
Another UNESCO-sponsored exhibition included 63 Chinese paintings owned by foreign museums. Some are as old as 2,000 years.
Other exhibitions of the month:
—Modern art show by the Fifth Moon Group at the China Post Gallery.
—Taiwan Visitors Association showing of 200 Chinese opera masks painted by Chen Hou-jan at the Provincial Museum in Taipei.
—Chinese painting and calligraphy exhibition in Taipei to mark the 89th anniversary of the birth of the late Yu Yu-jen, calligrapher and president of the Control Yuan.
World of Sound
Taipei also had a good month in music. The performances included:
—Chamber music from the U.S. Fine Arts Quartet and guest clarinetist David Glazer. There were five performances, four of them in central and southern Taiwan.
—A recital on the Yamaha electric organ by Yoshifumi Kiriono from Japan.
—Song recital by soprano Margarita Schack from West Germany at the Taipei City Hall.
—Paul Makanowitzky's violin recital in Taipei.