Though already 81 years old, director Li Hsing still manages to keep himself busy. This August he finished directing a large-scale stage production of “Summer Snow,” a play based on an ancient Chinese story and written by Li himself.
He is also tireless in promoting the works of Taiwanese directors in mainland China, helping them make inroads into the film market there.
Asked to comment on the current state of the Taiwan cinema, Li says, “From what I have seen of the recent hits ‘Cape No. 7’ and ‘Monga,’ the new generation of directors is getting better and better at making films that truly resonate with the audience.”
No one is better qualified to make such an assessment. Taking a glimpse into Li’s work spanning six decades is like looking at a microcosm of Taiwan’s cinematic history.
Born in mainland China in 1930, Li immigrated to Taiwan in 1948 during the Chinese civil war. Though he cannot speak a word of Taiwanese, Li has made a dozen widely popular films in the language. While he has never sat through an entire performance of a Taiwanese opera, he has made several movies using the art form. And he was among the first to help open up overseas markets for locally produced films.
From tear-jerkers such as “Execution in Autumn” and “He Never Gives Up” to romances such as “Four Loves” and “The Silent Wife,” Li has directed a wide variety of films. He helped make actors Ke Jun-siong and Chin Han household names in the 1970s. During that decade, his films won the best picture award at the Golden Horse Film Festival three years in a row, a record that has yet to be broken.
It is no wonder that film critic Peggy Chiao refers to him as the father of Taiwanese cinema.
Li did not start out wanting to be a director. When he was in college, he dreamed of being an actor. He acted in school plays and even skipped a final exam to play a minor role in the film “Forever Shall Be.” He spent a lot of time getting into character only to find himself completely frozen when he heard the slam of the clapboard. “My mind just went blank,” he said.
After several takes, Li realized that being an actor is not as easy as it looks. His later adventures into acting did not turn out any better. Though still young, he was frequently given the roles of elderly men. The primitive make-up techniques at the time meant “my beard was made of knitting wool, while my wrinkles were drawn with an eyebrow pencil,” he recalled. “I looked like Mickey Mouse.” He decided to go behind the camera.
One of his first jobs after graduating from college was reporting entertainment news for the Independence Evening News, founded by his father Li Yu-jie. But the movie-making bug continued to sting. He acted for director Tang Shao-hua on the side and learned to be his assistant as well. His chance to hold the megaphone finally came when Taiwanese films became popular in the late 1950s.
“People swarmed to produce period dramas in Taiwanese, but we wanted to be different so we tried comedy and directed ‘Ong Ko and Liu Ko,’ based on Laurel and Hardy,” Li said. As the film ended up being too long, Li split it into two parts, both of which ended up being box-office hits.
As with any Hollywood blockbuster, sequels were made of the Ong Ko and Liu Ko comedies, further establishing Li’s name.
A director’s pay proved unstable, however. Li, then a new father, could hardly afford to pay his rent. After his second child was born, he felt like quitting filmmaking altogether. “I learned typing and English,” he said, adding that he thought about finding a desk job at the Taiwan External Trade Office.
But as luck would have it, Long Fan, head of Taiwan Motion Pictures, approached him and commissioned him to direct documentaries on the now-disbanded Taiwan Provincial Government. These were quite well-received; together with a few Taiwanese movies he made during that time, including opera-themed “The Royal Society,” his directing career was back on track.
In 1963, Li, then 33, self-financed the production of “Our Neighbors,” a movie reflecting on ethnic identity and collective angst. The film drew the attention of Lee Gong-hong, then general manager of Central Pictures Corp., who invited Li to direct “Oyster Girl” and “Beautiful Duckling.” The two films pioneered a new genre known as healthy realism.
Li changed focus again as he started directing such films as “Four Loves” and “The Silent Wife,” adopted from romance novels by the popular writer Chiung Yao, and introduced these films to the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia.
“Taiwan used to import a lot of Hong Kong movies,” he said. But “The Silent Wife,” which screened for about two months in Hong Kong, helped open up overseas markets. “Thanks to this, Hong Kong opened a new movie theater solely for playing films from Taiwan.”
Li’s success continued as he cooperated with screenwriter Chang Yung-hsiang and directed 10 romance movies based on Chiung Yao’s novels. These movies are said to belong to the “three-room” genre, because the heroes and heroines shuttle from living rooms to dining rooms and cafes in search of love. The movies made Chin Han, Charlie Chin and Joan Lin celebrities among the Chinese-speaking communities in Asia.
But Chiung Yao decided to set up her own production company and stopped licensing movie rights to Li. Their friendship soured as a result and the stubborn Li began making his own love story out of spite. “I thought I knew Chiung Yao’s romance formula by heart,” Li said. “When her novel ‘The Misty Moon’ was made into a movie, Chang Yung-hsiang and I made ‘Melody from Heaven.’ The two films were practically dueling it out at the cinema.”
Unfortunately, Li lost out big time. The money he made from directing Chiung Yao’s movies before their falling-out all went down the drain. “It was only then that I admitted Chiung Yao was a real talent who knew what she was doing,” Li said.
Nevertheless, his films “He Never Gives Up,” “The Story of a Small Town” and “Good Morning, Taipei” all went on to win critical acclaim.
The year 1983 was a turning point in his career and a generational shift in Taiwan’s film industry. To the surprise of many observers, his movie “The Wheel of Life,” which he co-directed with King Hu from Hong Kong and Bai Jing-rui from Taiwan, lost out at the box office to “The Sandwich Man,” directed by the younger Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tseng Chuang-hsiang and Wang Jen.
Because Hou started out as a log keeper on the set for Li, “many people described the performances of the two movies as a ‘battle between directors of the older and younger generations.’ They saw it as ‘the start of a new era,’” Li said, his generosity toward younger directors tinged with a hint of melancholy.
In 1987, “the China Times published a ‘New Taiwanese Cinema Manifesto’ signed by 50 culturati [including Edward Yang and Hou],” Li said. “Senior directors like me realized that it was time we passed on our baton.”
The manifesto expressed the younger generation’s dissatisfaction with the filming environment and their questioning of the overall government policy toward filmmaking. It heralded Taiwan’s New Wave Cinema noted for its social realism and art-house cinematography.
Just before the advocacy of this new movement, Li directed “The Heroic Pioneer” with his usual dedication, yet knowing that he was gradually moving from creating movies to servicing the industry. He first organized the Asia Pacific Film Festival with playwright Stan Lai, and served on the executive board of the Golden Horse Film Festival and successfully propelled it into the most important movie event in the Chinese-speaking communities in the region.
Li has witnessed the ups and downs of Taiwanese cinema but his passion for filmmaking has never subsided. Thanks to that, his scores of movies have become an important part of Taiwan’s collective memory. (ML-HZW)
(This feature story originally appeared in the China Times Oct. 2)
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