Asia Pacific Arts, 8/4/2005
The Butterflies Return
by Brian Hu
[image] Liang Shanbo and Chu Yingtai sing their longest goodbyes. Courtesy of movie.kingnet.com.tw

Li Han-hsiang’s record-breaking, award-winning classic The Love Eterne, made by Shaw Brothers in 1963, emerges over 40 years later to a very different crowd. It screens at the UCLA Film and Television Archive on Aug. 14.

The Love Eterne is the jewel in Shaw Brothers’ illustrious crown. Over forty years after its debut, it remains the most legendary of post-1949 Mandarin-language films due to the fanaticism it sparked in 1963 throughout Asia, especially in Taiwan, where even today the film is synonymous with the ocean of fans gushing over stars Le Di and Ling Po upon their arrival on the island, as well as the legend of the woman who allegedly saw the film over 100 times when it was originally released. With the opening of the Shaw vaults, the digital restoration of the films, and the much-delayed appearance of the films on VCD and DVD, The Love Eterne can now be viewed by those who remember originally seeing and re-seeing the film in spite of poverty and typhoons, as well as by a new generation such as myself who know the film only by reputation and bootleg VCDs.

But 40 years is a long time. Not only have two generations passed in those four decades, but a seismic cultural transformation as a result of Westernization, industrialization, Hollywood-ization, and nativist sentiments has made the film -- a huangmei opera period piece -- somewhat of a mystery to young people in Asia today. Add to that the international circulation of the restored Shaw catalog in the past three years, and you have a lot of people around the world scratching their heads over what those “crazy Taiwanese” (as the Hong Kongers said in 1963) were so wild about. No doubt that will be the case when the UCLA Film Archive brings the restoration to L.A., a city of film buffs, Shaw fans, and Mandarin-speaking immigrants.

Despite the definition of the word, restoration is necessarily a kind of modernization. This is especially the case with the re-opening of the Shaw catalog, where the goal is not so much what looks good for theatrical exhibition or what is historically accurate, but what will look and sound right on DVD, which is how most fans will ultimately see the films. Given the enormous quantity of films recently “restored,” my guess is that these films are not laboriously researched, nor are they the best possible prints scoured for in archives around the world, nor are the physical prints painstakingly repaired. Rather, it seems to me that they are digitally “corrected” and enhanced through a computer matrix which adjusts for contrast, color, and other parameters, while cleaning up dirt and other wear. I tend to agree with the rumors repeated by critic David Chute in a recent L.A. Weekly article that new sound effects have been foleyed-in to create a fuller wall of sound, as with the bird-chirping heard throughout The Love Eterne. A recent viewing of this film and other Shaw releases on the new DVDs reveals that some of the sound effects sound much crisper than the dialogue (as in the famous storm sequence which ends The Love Eterne), a sign that some of the effects may have been recorded on modern equipment.

However, if restoration is just modernization, does that make it imperfect, or worse yet, dishonest? Yes and yes, but it’s better to watch the restored Love Eterne and recognize its possible modifications than to not see it at all, because this restoration looks and sounds absolutely stunning. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has never looked better, even upon its 1963 release. Comparing the image with that of the original trailer on the DVD, the difference is astonishing. First, the sets, as directed by legendary filmmaker Li Han-hsiang, are revealed to be immaculately designed and staged. It can be argued that the film looks more artificial than ever because the clarity of the image reveals the film’s theatricality, but I see that as one of the film’s greatest virtues. The sets look painted because they exist in a distant fantasy world (literally distant for mainland refugees in Taiwan and southeast Asia), while the fake smoke permeating from the mountain trails is as dreamy and artificial as the effects in Guy Maddin’s films. Details can be seen that were neglected before. I remember a bird that flies from above the camera into the back of the set, a detail easily mistaken as film dirt before restoration. I’ve only seen the restoration on DVD; I can only imagine (based on the screenings I caught of the UCLA Film Archive’s “Heroic Grace” series a few years ago) what details will emerge when it lights up the big screen.

Second, the music sounds great; best yet, Mandarin speakers can now actually clearly hear the song lyrics. The Chinese subtitles are not a nuisance (Chinese films always have subtitles, even when screened for Chinese communities) but an invitation to sing along.

Finally, Ling Po and Le Di look as glamorous as their legends have built them up to be. Every hand motion, every facial gesture, every amusing and double-meaninged smile seems to glow in a way that just doesn’t make sense in a faded print. Looking at the faded trailer, one notices that, without the digital restoration, Le Di’s bright yellow costume (which emphasizes her femininity and wealth compared to Ling Po’s schoolboy blue) during the famous farewell scene has faded to white. As a historian, I can easily complain about the restoration’s imperfections, but as a critic, to see The Love Eterne in such a state of elegance is a cinephile’s dream.

Yet, regardless of the age or cultural background of the contemporary viewer, visual and aural stimulation will be secondary to the film’s conceit, which has -- now that The Love Eterne has re-emerged in the mainstream -- been the crux of nearly every conversation about the 42-year-old film. Classic Mandarin actress Le Di plays Chu Ying-tai, a wealthy teenage girl who wants to go to school, so she dresses up as a male to attend. On the road, she meets Liang Shan-bo, a working class boy. Ying-tai falls in love with Shan-bo, but obviously can’t show her feelings, so the two swear “brotherhood,” and for the next three years become uncommonly close. When Ying-tai is forced to return home, she, through song, hints to him her gender, but he dopily doesn’t understand. Finally, she asks him, if she were a woman, would he marry her, and he says yes.

For a modern audience, that conceit is already open to a homosexual interpretation of Liang Shan-bo, but if that’s not enough, Liang Shan-bo is played by a woman, actress Ling Po in her Shaw debut: thus a lesbian interpretation as well as a gay one. While I wouldn’t call The Love Eterne a homosexual film, it is certainly open to all kinds of gay, lesbian, and transgender readings, and thus the film’s place as a future camp classic is all but secure.

Recent scholarly studies of the film as inherently gay have come under attack, and I tend to agree with this dissenting counterargument that such claims assume contemporary, Western models of sexuality on a '60s Chinese genre with its own traditions of acting, singing, and storytelling. Women playing men’s parts was common in the genre, and actress Ling Po went on to make a career playing such roles. According to a fascinating New York Times interview with Ang Lee -- who as a child was one of those fanatical Taiwanese who saw the film multiple times and cried with each viewing -- nobody thought anything of the gender-bending at the time. In fact, Shaw was perhaps the most conservative Chinese studio of the era, collaborating with the KMT government on propaganda films like The Blue and the Black, and producing films almost exclusively in Mandarin, the language of the conservatives defeated by the Communists in the late '40s. The films, be they the huangmei operas or the martial arts films, are nostalgic about the ancient past, and few of the films set in the present were overtly about local issues in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, or Singapore, where these films were screened. This explains why Taiwan’s fervent reaction to the film was mostly in Taipei, a Mandarin-speaking KMT stronghold, where allegedly 90% of the Taipei population saw the film at least once. That The Love Eterne and the martial arts films of Zhang Che have been re-read recently for their subversive qualities parallels the recent reinterpretations of MGM’s Freed-unit musicals -- once considered the most conservative of Hollywood films -- as gay classics. The queering of the Liang Shan-bo and Zhu Ying-tai story has a long history, most famously surfacing above-ground with Tsui Hark’s incredible The Lovers, where Shan-bo is torn by the possibility that he may be in love with his male classmate.

Today, The Love Eterne marks the convergence of two important late 20th century trends, the huangmei opera film, and the Liang Shan-bo and Zhu Ying-tai story. The story, like the similar Mulan, is a Chinese folk legend, and has been passed on for centuries. However, the popularity of mass art like cinema and television in the late 20th century has made the story ripe for reinterpretation, from Sang Hu’s 1954 mainland film version (which many critics consider superior to Li Han-hsiang’s), to Tsui’s new-wave reading, to a recent animated feature for children, with songs by pop stars Elva Hsiao and Rene Liu. Especially in Taiwan, the story is incessantly in the mainstream, perennially revived in some form on stage and television. Despite her age, actress Ling Po often appears in the role that made her famous, opposite newcomers in the role of Zhu Ying-tai, since actress Le Di committed suicide in the late '60s.

The film is now considered the definitive huangmei film. This opera “genre” has a relatively short history. It derives from folk songs sung by tea pickers in the Anhui and Anqing regions of China, merging with the local Taiwanese gezhai opera when it is moved out of the mainland in the 20th century. Huangmei opera isn’t considered a “genre” of the stature of Beijing opera, in part because it lacks the precision of movement and the expressivity of gestures and rhythm found in other genres. Since it was originally sung by local farmers, huangmei is not characterized by the high-pitched vocals and piercing cymbals and percussion of traditional Chinese opera; instead, it is sung in quick phrases, often in chorus, by non-professional singers. This made huangmei especially suited for popular culture in the '60s, when Japanese modernization combined with Chinese traditions and Western fashions. The songs were catchy and the lyrics simple, and before long, everyone could memorize entire sequences of the films by watching the films or buying the LP. Popular actors, rather than professional opera singers, could make the films successful, although very often they were dubbed anyway. The quick shifts between short, bouncy melodies into extended phrase endings made the songs dynamic on the big screen and exciting for a younger generation (although the performances do seem slow today).
It’s worth noting that huangmei opera is rarely performed onstage. It is, unlike other Chinese opera styles, a genre that exists only in the cinema, and for that reason it has persisted as Chinese societies enter the multimedia age. It’s a testament to the persistence of the huangmei style that one of the best mainstream Hong Kong films in recent years is Chinese Odyssey 2002, a comic parody of huangmei films like Three Smiles, The Kingdom and the Beauty, and The Love Eterne. The genre’s persistence is also proof that artists and audiences are actively and creatively reinterpreting the films and their styles for contemporary sensibilities and needs, and for that reason, Shaw’s digital restoration of The Love Eterne, as well as its appearance on DVD and movie screens internationally, is so valuable today.

http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=27606

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hanooki.com, 08-02-2005
Director Examines Lives of Asian-American Women
By Park Chung-a
[image] A scene from the film “Tie a Yellow Ribbon”

The issue of identity has always been at the core of artworks by many adoptees. Joy Dietrich, a Korean adoptee filmmaker in her mid-30s, has confined the issue of identity not only to adoptees.

From her films like ``Surplus’’ and ``Robot Girl’’ to her new feature film ``Tie a Yellow Ribbon,’’ she has consistently focused on not only the identity problems of adoptees but also those of being an Asian-American women. Dietrich, who also works as a research editor at The New York Times, has just finished shooting one third of ``Tie A Yellow Ribbon’’ in the United States.

Structured into seven thematically related vignettes and stretching over three decades, the film exposes the lives of three Asian-American women _ Bea, Jenny and Sandy, as they grow up in America’s predominantly white society. In a recent e-mail and a phone interview with The Korea Times, Dietrich from New York talked about the need to raise awareness on Asian-American women in the U.S. , a segment of population that has not been greatly exposed and given voice.
[image] Joy Dietrich

Question: Could you briefly introduce yourself to our readers?

Answer: I was born in Korea, abandoned by my biological father in the city of Seoul when I was one or two years old. I lived in an orphanage for four years until I was adopted by my American parents. I lived in Texas for the first two years in the U.S. and then moved to Indiana where I stayed until high school graduation.

I went to college in Ohio and after graduation, lived in Geneva, Switzerland and Paris for several years. I moved to New York in 1998 to do films. From 1994, I worked as an editor and reporter for various magazines and news services in the United States and abroad. Until today, I continue to work in the field of journalism to help pay my bills.

In Fall 1999, I shot my first 16-millimeter short film called ``Surplus’’ (shown in Seoul last year at an art exhibit about Korean adoptee artists). ``Surplus’’ is about a poor Korean farmer having to choose which daughter out of many daughters to let go after a devastating drought. The film has shown in more than 30 film festivals and events.

Q: What does the title ``Tie A Yellow Ribbon’’ mean?

A: It has several meanings. For one thing, it's a famous song. For another, it's what Americans do to remember or honor soldiers overseas. They tie a yellow ribbon around a tree to honor the troops abroad. Yellow Ribbon, however, also has another, darker meaning. The Yellow Ribbon society is an organization that is a suicide prevention center. My film touches upon the topic of depression and suicide. Asian-American girls have the highest depression rates in the U.S.

Q: What steered you into filmmaking?

A: Filmmaking for me is more of a compulsion, a will to expose and discuss social issues that affect our lives. It’s very hard work and I can’t say I do filmmaking because I love it, it’s because I have to do it.

Q: What message do you want to convey to viewers through your new film? How is it different from other two films?

A: I would like to give more exposure to Asian-American girls. We are invisible in American society. There are hardly any films that show on mainstream media about Asian-American girls. So, my film is about three Asian-American girls growing up in the U.S., one of which is a Korean adoptee trying to fit in with her white family.

Q: When do you think the film will be done and released?

A: If everything goes according to plan, it should be completed in December 2006.

Q: What are the difficulties in making the film?

A: Finding financing to fund the project is the greatest hurdle. I’ve been lucky enough to receive a grant from New York State Council on the Arts and also am receiving development funds from ITVS (see Itvs.org). However, we are still looking for funds to finance the completion of the film. The Hollywood system is risk-averse and not many want to venture into a territory that’s experimental and seldom done. ``Tie a Yellow Ribbon’’ is a bit edgier than most mainstream films and contains complex portrayals of three young women trying to find their place in American society.

Q: Have you ever tried to find your biological parents? Or are you willing to do so?

A: I went to the orphanage I came from when I visited Korea the last time in 1989. But I have not much interest finding my parents compared to other adoptees. Why don’t I have much interest? I think this question might be the main theme for my next film, which will be a documentary about an adoptee’s search to understand birth and belonging.

Q: Any memorable or interesting episode while making the film?

A: The first part of the film was shot over 5 days in February 2005. During that period, we had wild weather conditions. The shoot began warm, Spring-like, 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius). Then it rained and by nightfall, it was freezing cold. By the last day, we were hit with a blizzard. We finished shooting in the middle of the night and when we were going back home, we were slipping and sliding all over the snowy roads. There was almost a foot of snow on the ground. We’re currently raising money to have the second part of the shoot.

Q: Have you faced any prejudice as an Asian-American female filmmaker? If so, how did you overcome them?

A: I’ m not sure if I ever faced prejudice as an Asian-American female. If I did face some condescending attitudes, it might be more about being female than Asian-American. Also I don’t know if some people react with prejudice or just disinterest in stories about Asian-American girls. Not many people are willing to take risky stories that veer off the mainstream.

Q: What do you want to say to other Asian-American women who want to start career in filmmaking?

A: Persist, be willing to work hard, don’t give into self-doubt, be open-minded to learn a lot and then persist again.

Q: Is there any official or non-official network among Asian-American or Korean-American female artists or filmmakers? Any organization that represents them?

A: No, specific Asian-American female artists or filmmakers organization that I know of. There are organizations that manage film festivals, promote Asian films in the U.S. like Asian Cinevision in New York and NAATA of San Francisco. NAATA (the distributor of my first film Surplus) also gives funds to filmmakers. But nothing specifically to promote Asian-American female artists.

Q: Do you have any network with Korean artists or film directors?

A: Yes. Greg Pak is an advisor on the project. Steve Maing has collaborated on a couple of my films. Both are Korean-American filmmakers.

Q: Currently, you also work as a research editor at the New York Times when not engaged in filmmaking activities. Do you find any relation between journalism and film-making? If so, in what way?

A: It’ s been a very smooth transition. You have to come up with a good story, a good angle, that catches people’s interest and attention, whether it’s an article in a magazine or a film you watch in theaters.

Q: When will be your next visit to Korea?

A: The last time I was in Korea was in 1989. I did a semester abroad program at Yonsei University from August 1988 to January 1989. It was an exciting period at the time, it was during the Seoul Olympics and a lot of student demonstrations. I will visit Korea again when someone invites me to be a guest speaker or attend a film festival.

Q: What does Korea mean to you? What is your impression about Korea?

A: Korea is a distant memory. Somewhere I once belonged and would like to see again.

Q: What is your ultimate goal as a film director?

A: I would like to make interesting, socially relevant films with a lot of integrity.

Q: Anything you want to say to our readers?

A: We are seeking more funding to help us finish ``Tie a Yellow Ribbon.’’ Please go to our film Web site www.yellowribbonmovie.com.

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iht, july 28, 2005
A tale of 2 film festivals in Korea
By Mark Russell

SEOUL With Hollywood action films dominating screens all over the world each summer, most fans of art house cinema would be happy to have any alternative to the loud, dumb world of the blockbuster. Last week, South Korea had two such alternatives - two film festivals running during the same 10-day period - but the nation's film community was still not very happy, thanks to a collision of art and politics that has engulfed two of the most popular movie events in Korea.

When Hong Gun Pyo, the mayor of Puchon, dismissed the director of his city's much-loved Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival, known as PiFan, in late December, he probably expected Korea's art community to react as it usually does when a politician flexes his muscles and forces changes - a few angry letters to newspapers, maybe a petition or two, and within a few months, all would be forgotten.

Instead, Kim Hong Joon and members of the Korean film community fought back. Kim and his programmers created the Real Fantastic Film Festival, known as RealFanta, and scheduled it in Seoul for mid-July, the same period as PiFan in Puchon. Using his weight in the film community, Kim got the support of the Korean Motion Pictures Producers' Association and helped ensure that almost no Korean films were screened at PiFan.

A Canadian film, "The Dark Hours," was named best feature at PiFan. At RealFanta, the best feature award went to "It's All Gone, Pete Tong," co-produced in Canada and Britain.

Since its inception nearly nine years ago, the PiFan festival in Puchon, a Seoul suburb just west of the sprawling capital, has been the second-biggest film festival in Korea, after the Pusan International Film Festival. Its annual showcase of the odd, fanciful and often grotesque earned it a much more enthusiastic following than many of the other more staid, respectable film festivals around the country, typically attracting more than 80,000 people over its 10-day run.

This year, however, because of the controversy and a heavy boycott by the local press and entertainment industry, PiFan pulled in just 30,000 people to indoor screenings during its run from July 14 to 23. Plenty of local city officials attended the opening and closing nights, but celebrities were nearly absent.

In contrast, RealFanta received substantial industry support, with attendance by such Korean heavyweights as the actors Lee Byung Hun and Ahn Sung Ki, the directors Kim Jee Woon ("A Bittersweet Life") and Im Kwon Taek ("Chiwhaseon") and many producers. Working on a shoestring budget, RealFanta sold more than 11,400 tickets over its run, which also ended July 23.

According to Kim, the problems started at last year's PiFan festival, when he forgot the newly elected mayor's name for two seconds during his speech in the opening ceremonies. The mayor, in the quiet break between Christmas and New Year's, dismissed Kim, citing the festival director's busy schedule as dean of the film school at the Korean National University of the Arts. Later, the mayor's office added that it was displeased with the PiFan festival's emphasis on strange fare, which it described as inappropriate for families.

Kim and others, however, saw petty politics. The mayor had run on the slogan "Puchon - More than Just Culture," and his conservative ties did not mesh well with the liberal bent of the PiFan organizers.

Whatever the truth, Kim was out. His programmers and nearly all the festival's major staff members insisted that the mayor reinstate Kim and promise not to interfere with the festival anymore or they would leave, too. Soon they all resigned.

The city's first choice to replace Kim did not last long, resigning days after his appointment in the wake of continued vocal opposition to PiFan from the Korean movie community. Eventually the movie director Zeong Cho Sin took on the task of trying to put together and run the 200-film slate with only five months to prepare. But Zeong, best known for his "American Pie"-style sex comedy "Wet Dreams," faced difficulties beyond the short preparation time; many in the Korean film community continued to support RealFanta rather than PiFan.

RealFanta made its home in the Seoul Art Cinema - an imposing, 40-year-old concrete box that actually spans a major downtown road. Until recently it was called the Hollywood Theater, once more notable for discrete sexual encounters than for great films. Next door, the 1-2-3 Cabaret is one of the oldest cabarets in town, adding a curiously elegant touch of kitsch to the festival.

"It was amazing," said the RealFanta programmer, Creta Kim. "We had 11,400 people come to our festival. We had no money and no government support, but still the people chose us. One Internet site full of our supporters raised money to buy eggs to feed people at the midnight screening. You could really see our support on the Internet bulletin boards."

RealFanta's midnight screening, part of its all-night event ending about 7 a.m., was similar to the popular all-night marathons programmed by PiFan.

PiFan suffered greatly from the negative publicity, with attendance dropping to just 30,000 at indoor screenings this year (plus another 30,000 at the outdoor screenings). "I said I would take all the criticism and apologize for any inconvenience," said Zeong as he went on to apologize about 10 times in his five-minute speech that closed the festival. "I promise to do better next year."

But many in the foreign media praised the festival and said they thought Zeong had been treated unfairly. PiFan, they said, had nothing to apologize for.

Meanwhile, RealFanta organizers said they are still learning to enjoy the freedom of running a film festival free from government interference. PiFan typically received over $2 million in government support. RealFanta organizers say they put together their 60-film alternative on just $200,000. "It was worth it, though, to be free from any controlling power," Kim said. "We're thinking of having the festival again next year. We want to find support from the private sector. We want to stay autonomous."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/27/opinion/russell.php

 

 

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