During an event-filled November week, prizes in fourteen Festival categories were awarded to 1983's outstanding Asian films and film people, a selection of nominated films was shown for local audiences, and the industry engrossed itself in seminars and meetings to discuss current problems and prospects.
The film industry suffers from many maladies these days, not the least of which has been the sacrifice of originality to rote commercialism. However, video piracy, competition from Western films and television, and low production standards also pose considerable problems.
The formal opening of the Asia-Pacific Festival took place in the halls of the distinctively Chinese-modern Chung Shan building on Yangmingshan mountain, just outside Taipei. Over a hundred directors, producers, actresses and reporters from thirteen different Asia-Pacific countries attended. Republic of China Vice President Hsieh Tung-min, calling movies a "bridge for communication between peoples," summed up the hard purposes of the confab. "During the next few days you will be devoted to the study and discussion of the cause of the FPA, about how to establish new landmarks for film industry, how to enhance the quality of life for the Asia-Pacific region through cinema...and how to take action against film pirating."
The day's events included the opening of a film market where members of each country's film industry could survey exhibits of new film equipment and also screen films awaiting distributors.
Japanese delegates accept one of several Festival awards
At discussion meetings, ROC specialists in cinematography, editing, sound effects, and animated film discussed improved techniques in filmmaking and synchronized recording. George F.H. Chang, secretary-general of the organizing committee, pointed out dryly, that introduction of advanced technologies was one way to improve the end product.
But probably the most intensive level of discussion took place at a symposium in which experts presented papers outlining the hard views of the filmmaking pros of the Asia-Pacific.
Wu Tung-chuan, head of the news department of CTV, one of the three ROC networks, declared that since "film is a very complicated technical art and commercial product...the management of film should never be separated from the conception of business management." He added that the concentration of "capital, talent, and profits in a complete organization are the most important parts...."
Hsu Chia-shih, a professor of communications at National Chengchi University, suggesting that film has many social functions—which can be seen as informative, persuasive, educational, and entertaining—called for film attention to upgrading the quality of life of the people of the Asia-Pacific region.
Liao Hsiang-hsiung, director of the Taiwan Film Studio, noted that films of individual Asian countries are normally restricted to local audiences, unlike Western films, which enjoy world markets despite language barriers. Breaking this bottleneck is a crucial challenge for Asian films, Liao said. He suggested cooperation between Asian countries on film productions, plus exchanges of films, as a beginning on ways to "reach this common goal of making all of our films acceptable in every Asia-Pacific country."
In a paper tabled by the Jakarta delegation, film's connection with people's quality of life was stressed. "A film must be able to stand as a spokesman for life's values," they wrote. "If a film is an accurate reflection of reality, then one can trust that the film is not merely a commercial commodity, but is an integral part of a nation's struggle for progress and development."
The celebrity-studded audience of filmdom professionals enjoys live performances by delegations from many countries
The China Film Company, a ROC government organization, formed the backbone of the organization committee for this year's Asia-Pacific Festival.
And strong ROC government support was indicated not only by involvement in organizing the event, but by the participation in the Festival of ROC Premier Sun Yun-suan and Minister of Education Chu Hwei-sen, and of James Soong, the director-general of the Government Information Office, and Chen Chi-lu, chairman of the ROC Council for Cultural Development.
The Festival's feature—the ceremonial presentation of the film awards—took place on the final evening. The "Asia-Pacific All-Star Night," a three-hour program hosted by Chinese movie luminaries from Taiwan and Hongkong, featured an exotic array of modern and traditional song and dance performances by delegations from Seoul, Bangkok, Jakarta, Tokyo, Manila, and the host city, Taipei.
Aside from, perhaps, Japan, the Republic of China, and Indonesia, this year was not a good one for Asian film makers.
Faced with growing competition from video tapes, as well as cable television and Western movies, much of the film industry is losing its audience.
"This is one of the worst years for our film industry," Santo Pestonji, Thai delegation leader, admitted. "We have been seriously hampered by the expansion of television as well as by video tapes and cable TV, which is illegal in Thailand, but still operates. We produced seventy films this year, down from over a hundred annually.
"A lot of theaters are closing down because of video tapes. You may think most people can't afford to buy video tape machines, but teahouses and coffeehouses show video tapes," Pestonji added.
Just as the coming of television presented a major challenge to the movie industry of the 1950s, video tapes—both convenient and readily available—are now taking away large portions of the movie-going audience. "A lot of older women or men would rather just rent a few video tapes than go out, and this really reduces our audience," chimed in one member of the Hongkong delegation. Delegates from Hongkong and Japan, however, say that video tape piracy of movies is not a serious problem in their countries, crediting the passing and enforcement of strict government regulations.
Best Actor—Shih Chiun, in The Wheel of Life, Taipei
The Japanese head delegate, Shigeru Okada, reported that, though there are now some 18 million video machines in Japan, the Japanese film industry still grew by 12 percent last year.
Both Tuan Abdul Malek, head of the Malaysian delegation, and Philippines leader Rolfio Velasco, characterized the video situation as "bringing down" the film industry in their countries. Velasco submitted a resolution to the FPA board condemning illegal video tapes and urging governments of the Asia-Pacific countries to adopt effective measures to control this problem.
Of course, video piracy is not the only reason many Asian film producers are losing their audience. Film quality has a lot to do with it.
"We had very strong competition from Indian musicals before," Bangkok delegate Pestonji said, with a wry expression. "People in the countryside, especially, seemed to like them very much. But now tastes seem to have changed to action films and slapstick comedy, which unfortunately cannot be understood outside of Thailand."
"If we are going to show the real life of our countries, we must have a creative atmosphere for film makers—we must not be restricted by either the government or the people trying to make money," declared Ami Priyono, an Indonesian film director. His government sometimes tries to help its film makers, but does not know how, he said. "The government does not trust the artists," he shrugged.
Stan Lai, a professor of drama at the National Institute of Arts in Taipei, was a member of the 17-member jury that screened over a hundred hours of films for the festival. "A lot of countries do show by the films they brought to the festival that they are still interested in entertaining their audiences," he says, "but the standards they find for entertaining are mostly sex and violence—lots of uncalled for violence, gruesome violence.
"However, aside from this, I find a kind of social awareness rising in their films—particularly the Indonesian films and the films from Taiwan. Perhaps these can serve as some kind of model for Asian countries. One of the most pressing problems in Asia today is the clash between old and new—it's a transitional society. Some countries seem unwilling to face the problems that these circumstances have created.
"If you want to find a theme that unites the serious artistic attempts that rise above the level of pure entertainment, it's this attempt (to express the problems of a transitional society)," Lai said.
At the ceremony's close, the performers overflow the stage and come down to the audience to say farewell
Shohei Imamura, director of Japan's The Ballad of Narayama, winner of 1983's Cannes Film Festival's best film award, believes that "Asian films tend to be more spiritual" as compared with films of other regions, and went on to explain that he had hesitated to send Ballad to Cannes because he feared Westerners would fail to understand it. His film focuses on an elderly mother left by her son to die in the snow, dissecting the belief that though the flesh is mortal, the soul lives on, perhaps in reincarnation.
The Australian and New Zealand delegations perceived quite a distance between their films and those of the other Asia-Pacific nations.
"Most of our films are not ones Asians would like at all," said Jane North, chief of the Australian delegation. "Australian films are entirely Western in look and feel," she said. "Of course, we'd love to get into the Asian market—one reason we're here is to get a feel for the kind of films that are liked here."
What is upstream for the Asian film industries?
Professor Lai has one possible answer. "Taiwan is a wonderful example—what's happened in our industry this year is really worth taking note of. You saw an industry really depressed, losing its audience, and in this one year alone, we saw four to five attempts at really creating movies with more serious intent, aimed at more discriminating audiences. And in this way, they got their audience back.
"It seems this is what audiences really like, not stupid, melodramatic love stories in which every single possible catastrophe occurs. The industry here was losing its audiences and had to do something. Why not go for quality?"
While the 28th Asia-Pacific Film Festival may not have directly addressed the dilemmas of Asian film producers by adopting concrete programs towards their solution, the success of the festival was marked in this way: Good films were seen by cinematic professionals who might not have seen them, and these people met each other. The Festival raised the level of awareness of Asia-Pacific films, and of their markets and market problems.
Winners for the Asia-Pacific Film Festival follow:
Best Film—The Makioka Sisters, Tokyo...Best Director—Kon Ichikawa, The Makioka Sisters, Tokyo...Best Screenplay—Jose Jovier Reyes, Gold, Silver, Death, Manila...Best Actor—Shih Chiun, The Wheel of Life, Taipei...Best Actress—Yoko Tanaka, Amagi Pass, Tokyo...Best Supporting Actor—Isao Natsuki, My Stiff Necked Daddy and Me, Tokyo...Best Supporting Actress—Koh Du-Shim, Jealousy, Seoul...Best Cinematography—Chang Huei-kung and Christopher Doyle, That Day on the Beach, Taipei...Best Art Director—Shinobu Muraki, The Makioka Sisters, Tokyo...Best Sound—Takashi Matsumoto, Amagi Pass, Tokyo...Best Editing—Shao Feng, Men From the Gutter; Hongkong...Best Music—Frank Strangio, Dusty, Sydney...Best Short Film—Pictures That Post, Sydney...Best Animated Film—Dot and the Bunny, Sydney
Six special achievement awards were presented:
No Harvest, But a Thorn, Kuala Lumpur, for best depiction of rural life in Asia...A Thousand Years More, Jakarta, for best depiction of traditional culture...The Big Ice: Ice Society, Wellington, for best depiction of nature...As White as Her Heart, As Red as Her Lips, Jakarta, for best depiction of family life in a transitional society...Sorapong Chatri and Christine Hakim from Bangkok and Jakarta for actor and actress with most potential...Miracle, Manila, for best depiction of socially involved religion.
The International Catholic Organization for Cinema and Audio-Visuals in Asia presented its Golden Torch Award to the ROC movie A Flower in the Raining Night for its revelation of human nature.
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The Golden Horse rides on to new frontiers
By Cecilia Chang
Hosted by entertainers Sun Yueh and Tien Niu and interspersed with glittering entertainment, the splendiferous ceremonies for this year's Golden Horse Awards also heralded a great victory for the local film industry. Gone now were the quality and commercial frustrations of last year, as Taiwan film producers not only made a comeback at the box office, but rebounded with a quality vengeance, taking a total of 16 awards, with only two going to Hongkong, last year's winners in the cinema sweepstakes.
The festivities also marked a watershed in the history of this annual filmdom highlight for the Taiwan and Hongkong cinema industries. Beginning next year, Taiwan's matured industry will take over from the ROC Government Information Office (GIO), which has produced the gala event for the past 20 years.
The baton was passed by Dr. James C.Y. Soong, GIO director-general, in the form of a calligraphic work designed by the late master painter Chang Dai-chien especially for the Golden Horse Awards. Ming Chi, chairman of the ROC Film Association, accepted, and GIO's stewardship was over.
Best Actress Lu Hsiao-fen and Best Actor Sun Yueh have the horses
Growing Up, a production of the Central Motion Picture Corporation, garnered three top awards—best picture, best director, and best screenplay. The movie tells the story of a young mother who pays the price for an over-indulgent love for her fatherless son.
A total of four honors—best actor, best recording, best original music, and best episode—was amassed by Papa—Can You Hear Me Sing? the saga of a mute junk collector and his much-loved adopted daughter, who later becomes a famous singer.
The successes of Growing Up and Papa—Can You Hear Me Sing? indicate the turnabout in the fortunes of local film producers, who were struggling with the scary choice between status quo and creativity at a time when the movie industry was in its lowest tide. They chose the latter and are now reaping the rewards.
A highlight of this year's ceremony was the showing of a film of in-the-flesh greetings and congratulations specially for this occasion, featuring Roger Moore, Angie Dickinson, Milton Berle, and dozens of other Hollywood luminaries.
A special surprise Golden Horse Award for the GIO's Dr. James Soong, to a standing ovation, acknowledged his personal efforts to promote the local ROC film industry over the past five years.
Lyrics from the Golden Horse Awards theme song, perhaps, best sum it up:
Let the Golden Horse spin the wheels
of the silver screen,
With the purity of gold, with the
flight of a Pegasus,
Giving our all for Art, for Virtue,
Beauty, and Truth,
Life's joys and sorrows,
expressed on a screen.
Let the Golden Horse move us
forward in search of our dream
forever more.
The Golden Horse, gilded-symbol of cinematic excellence, had run its course, and galloped onward to another year.
The 1983 Golden Horse Awards winners:
Best supporting actress—Ying Ying for A Flower in the Raining Night...Best supporting actor—Ku Feng for Guilt of Bichia...Best child actor—Annie Shih for Magic Wheel.
Best Costume Design—King Hu and Wang Tung for All the King's Men...Best Art Design—Chang Chi-ing for The Wheel of Life...Best Cinematography—Sung Li-ping for Beside the Lonely Lake...Best Film Editing—Chou Tao-chun and Lin Shan-liang for The Wheel of Life...Best Documentary Production—Shaar Descent Highway Project, produced by the Ret-Ser Engineering Agency...Best cartoon—Super Animal, produced by the Taiwan Cartoon Company and the Roman Film Corporation...Best recording—Kao Fu-kuo for Papa—Can You Hear Me Sing?...Best Episode—Li Shou-chuan for Papa—Can You Hear Me Sing?...Best original music—Chen Chih-yuan and Li Shou-chuan for Papa—Can You Hear Me Sing?...Best story and screenplay—Tsai Chi-kuang and Hsu Mo for Hongkong, Hongkong...Best screenplay—Chu Tien-wen, Ho Hsiao-hsien, Ting Ya-ming, and Hsu Shu-chen for Growing Up.
Best director—Chen Kun-ho for Growing Up...Best actor—Sun Yueh for Papa—Can You Hear Me Sing?...Best actress—Lu Hsiao-fen for A Flower in the Raining Night...Best film—Growing Up.
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Looking back in film-time
In The Long Alley (1955), an older woman, like a sentry, haunts a lonely alley behind her home every night, hoping within hopelessness for the return of the baby she abandoned seventeen years ago. In A Private Affair (1957), a Hongkong schoolgirl suddenly discovers her "father" is not of her flesh-and-blood, when her real parents reclaim her after years of separation. Even in singin', dancin' Mambo Girl (1957), the heroine leaves a loving family to look for her real mother in bars and nightclubs.
Using the standard techniques of Hollywood, many Chinese movies of the 1950's explored the traditional concepts of family and other areas of our lifestyles at a time when all of society was in flux. So it is especially intriguing that as part of the programming of the 1983 Golden Horse International Film Festival, the Taipei Film Library selected ten outstanding Chinese films of the 1950's, all of them, directly or indirectly, involved in major issues of their time.
The selected movies are undoubtedly "Hollywood" in both style and genre. The Four Daughters (1957) strongly resembles madcap romantic comedies of the 40's and 50's featuring such stars as Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. The happy lovers in The Ups and Downs of Peach Blossom Village (1957) hold hands and sing about the virtues of peach blossoms in the true, only-a-song-will-do, Hollywood musical fashion. And when the heroine of Golden Lotus (1956) leaves her lover "for his own good," he luckily discovers her disappearance just in time to catch the train she is on—the familiar Hollywood movie cliche of self-denial rewarded by a perfect ending.
Nonetheless, these films are more than imitations. Their characters are often engaging, the acting good, the dilemmas and situations Chinese in inspiration, and the camera work and editing balanced and consistent. Many of these films use their "borrowed" filmic techniques to tell Chinese stories with great mastery.
All but one of the exhibited films were made in Hongkong, the first stopping point for many Chinese in the film industry after the Communist takeover of 1949. Hongkong's The Long Alley and Golden Lotus represent a relatively serious-minded genre with roots in the Chinese mainland movies of the 1930's and early 1940's. Both are set in traditional China, both presenting stories (and often, a moral lesson) with strongly theatrical flavor.
The Long Alley, made with the cooperation of a Taiwan-based company, China Film, concerns the Chinese family's traditional favoritism towards sons as the continuers of the family line. The wife of a scholar, an only son, after giving birth to three daughters, is fearful her husband will take a second wife, as her brother-in-law has done. After the secret birth of their fourth daughter, she abandons the baby in an alley and substitutes a male baby born at nearly the same time. A passing prostitute spots the abandoned baby and carries it away.
As the movie begins, we see the aging wife in her habitual nightime posture on the balcony overlooking the alley where her baby daughter was abandoned seventeen years earlier. Compounding her problem is the behavior of the "adopted" son, who drinks, gambles, and disgraces the family.
Her health has failed under the strain, and the wife confesses to her husband just before she dies, and charges him to find their daughter. They both fear the girl may now be trapped in the oldest profession.
The husband's search leads him through cold alleys and out-of-the-way bars and bordellos, until he finally happens on his real daughter—who has been well-loved and cared for. The husband realizes that the foster mother has earned the right to keep the girl as her own daughter. Eschewing stereotypes for honest and touching characters, The Long Alley succeeds in re-creating people who believe in and live by the conventions and traditions of old China.
Golden Lotus, less consistent than The Long Alley, also poses a dilemma firmly rooted in traditional society. The son of a rich scholar happens to hear Lotus, an entrancing young singer, at a lower-class winehouse one night, and the two later fall in love. The family intervenes, forcing him to go through with an arranged marriage. His wife, played by the same actress as his love object, is a model of soft-spoken obedience; she gradually withers as the young son neglects her to pine after Lotus. After the true lovers go through a series of setbacks and trials, the wife dies, and the son leaves town.
Both The Long Alley and Golden Lotus vividly recreate old ways in Peking through characters, costumes, and music. The cinematography and editing is conventionally done, but fluid and methodical. The camera work recreates the space in which these people lived: upstairs and downstairs, in and out of front and back doors, facing the dilemmas of their times.
Situations and characters of a more contemporary strain are offered in A Private Affair and The Four Daughters, both produced and set in Hongkong. The two films manage to pose self-answered questions about morality while keeping well within the mode of the traditional "entertaining movie"—that is, introduction of character types in the beginning, complications in the middle, and a happy ending.
A Private Affair is not about lovers, as its name might suggest, but a family mixup involving a charming schoolgirl, Pei-mei. Her contented life is disrupted by the arrival of her rich "aunt" from Italy, who heaps Pei-mei with presents. Overhearing an argument between her father and the "aunt," Pei-mei discovers that the lady is her real mother, who ran off to marry another man when Pei-mei was young.
Then, after an initial rejection of her mother, Pei-mei accepts her, only to be subjected to greater complications. Her foster father loses a leg in an auto accident, and realizing he will be unable to take proper care of her, tells her an astounding truth: He is not her real father! The real father is the man her real mother ran off with, and he now appears on the scene, ready to take his wife and daughter back with him to Italy. But, though her foster father tries to force Pei-mei to return with her real parents to Italy, as she is boarding the plane, Pei-mei finally refuses to go. She runs back to her foster father, in her eyes, still her "real" father.
From the opening shot of the mother's plane landing, to the closing shot of her plane taking off over Hongkong harbor, A Private Affair is typical Hollywood. Shots are joined by simple fade-in, fade-out, and appropriate bursts of music accentuate the emotional shock or conflict.
The Four Daughters reflects a change in traditional concepts of family, offering at the same time, truly hilarious moments involving four grown sisters and their love complications. The four have very different personalities, which result in frequent conflicts which their father is completely unable to control.
The oldest has taken on the responsibilities of their deceased mother, working hard both on the job and at home. The second, beautiful and sensual, specializes in stealing her older sister's boyfriends. The third, lively and tomboyish, tries to protect her oldest sister from second daughter's preying ways. The youngest, only seventeen, is already set on dropping out of school and marrying, a plan she carries out early in the movie.
The Four Daughters has a little of everything—madcap romantic comedy, cha-cha-cha, fencing, emotional scenes, a car accident—and in the end, a grand reunion. Sadly, despite the director's deliberate use of the camera as dramatic tool, the film does not really hold together.
The Ups and Downs of Peach Blossom Village and Mambo Girl represent a third category, light-hearted musicals with serious topics tucked in between songs. For instance, the people of the Peach Blossom Village are first bullied by the landlord's son, and later forced to flee the Japanese invasion. However, Peach Blossom, now a refugee and the star of the movie, is still able to trill cheerful "la-la-las" while she and her mother eke out a living in the city. After the war ends, she is reunited with her lover, and they all return to the village to rebuild her mother's winehouse and live, presumably, happily ever after. (The Hollywood technique of blithely ignoring history allows the makers of the film to disregard the Communist insurrection and takeover.)
Mambo Girl, which features the popular dance, is also a vehicle for song. The movie opens and closes on shots of feet, dancing. The camera pulls back at the beginning to show a riotous scene of over twenty teenagers dancing around the "Mambo Girl," an outgoing high school girl much admired for her singing and dancing.
However, between the songs and dance numbers, "Mambo Girl" discovers she is an adopted child. She goes searching for her real mother, whom she discovers working as a bathroom attendant in a seedy nightclub.
The mother, however; refuses to admit her identity, for fear of upsetting the girl's happy life. The scenes of their meeting are done with such self-restraint, that the tearful encounter is truly touching.
While the female stars in these films are generally excellent, strangely enough, there is only one strong male actor, Wang Yin—the respectable, scholarly father in both Alley and A Private Affair. Lin Tai and Ke Lan, who play Lotus and the Mambo Girl, respectively, were well-known and extremely popular songstresses of their time. Their acting goes very well within the bounds of the coquettish, spirited female roles popular at the time. Lin Tsui as the comedienne-sister, and Ye Feng as seductress-sister offer convincing performances in The Four Daughters. You Min in A Private Affair enlists audience sympathy with her portrayal of a tender-hearted young girl. Finally, Wang Lai plays "tough woman" with great verve in several character roles.
The techniques employed in these films of the 1950's are straightforward to the point of simplicity—the characters are usually strongly drawn and somewhat one-dimensional, with personalities designed to engage the audience's sympathy. There are few subplots, flashbacks, or montages which might help build cinematic relationships between shots through association, rather than straight narration.
Though this single-stranded narrative-style of film making may sound monotonous, despite stereotypes and cliches, there is a sincerity in the acting and production which is impossible to mistake...and very enjoyable to watch.
L.K. Hsu, director of the Taipei Film Library, lauded the exhibited films of the 50's as "conveying the special nature of Chinese culture through the themes of morality and family relations," and for a higher thought-provoking content than many current movies. Therefore, he commented, "when we were making decisions about the International Film Festival, we decided to try to bring in this part of our own film heritage. We felt the obligation to get today's audience's to take another look, to notice what was going on then."
The "packaging" of these film presentations is a significant key to their content, since film like all art, is a reflection of the conditions in which it is produced—though hardly a mirror image. All photographic media are given shape and meaning via the techniques with which they are pursued. Since photography and cinema first developed in the West, their techniques and styles are based on Western visual conventions. Thus, the composition within a frame of film, the logic of the continuity between frames, and the genres or types which we find in the Chinese films of the 50's can all be traced to the Western film tradition, especially that of Hollywood.
This being the nature of film, it becomes an analogy for the encounter between China, an old civilization, and America, a new, technological society. Since the 19th Century, China has been grappling with the problem of modernization: how to adopt Western technologies while maintaining a Chinese identity. Chinese films are another element of this question.
Certainly, these films represent a period in history and filmmaking to which there is no return, but they not only offer a valuable, nostalgic look at an earlier era, they represent an enviable innocence, an intactness, a display of confidence. As to the perplexing question of whether they are really Chinese films despite all their Hollywood techniques, perhaps when really better Chinese films are produced with which to form a comparison, then we will have an answer.