Synopsis

Silent with live music accompaniment: NAI(Chan Wai Fat . Gabriel Fung . Bunn Lau)

Based on Romance of the West Chamber and shot entirely on location in regions south of the Yangtze, the film demonstrated skilful camera movement and editing, and a compelling narrative of the scholar-beauty genre with a fantastical Arabian Nights-esque touch, aesthetically in no way inferior to the West. Lost in wartime, a nitrate print of the 50-minute European version of this film has been in the collection of the Nederlands Filmmuseum. The museum sent two copies of the photochemically restored version to China and Taiwan in 1992 and its colour print was duplicated by the Hong Kong Film Archive in 2003 and scanned digitally in 2014. Chinese intertitles were added replacing the original French, using the illustrations in the film brochure as reference. A segment with original French intertitles will be shown in this screening.

Movie Name: Way Down West - Reconstructed version
Language: No Dialogue(Chinese intertitles, English subtitles)
Category: --
Duration: 56 mins

Movie Name: Way Down West - Original version with French intertitles
Language: No Dialogue(French intertitles, English subtitles)
Category: --
Duration: 15 mins

Hou Yao (1903－1942)
A film director and playwright who led the development of film theory in early Chinese Cinema. His work addressed social issues of the time, including gender inequality and Japanese aggression.