Timeless treasures captured on film
Documentary features artists that enraptured audiences for generations with memorable roles in old Chinese movies
The question was direct. The answer, even more so. When documentary maker Pan Yilin was interviewing screen legend Yu Lan in 2018, he asked the actress, then 97 years old, what her most fervent hope was. Yu responded calmly and with great dignity that she was quietly waiting for death.
Pan took five years, from 2017 to 2021, to make his first documentary Yanyuan (Once Upon a Time in Film), which hit the screens on Oct 30.
“That was how she saw death. Her eyes looked peaceful, as if for her, she had already spent her time in this world. Her peace and calmness, especially, moved me,” said Pan, 49.
However, to keep to the main thrust of the film, Pan did not keep this part of the interviews with Yu. She died in 2020 — before the documentary came out. Yu was one of 22 film stars who had been awarded the title of “people’s actors and actresses of New China” by Premier Zhou Enlai in 1962.
Eight of the 22 artists are featured in the documentary — Xie Fang, Zhu Xijuan, Qin Yi, Wang Xiaotang, Tian Hua, Jin Di, Yu Yang and Yu Lan. They committed many classic characters to film, such as Yu Lan’s Jiang Zhujun in Living Forever in Burning Flames (1965); Zhu’s Wu Qionghua in The Red Detachment of Women (1961); Xie’s Lin Daojing in Song of Youth (1959); Yu Yang’s Xiao Xiang in Baofeng Zhouyu (The Tempest) (1961); Tian’s Xi’er in The White-Haired Girl (1950), Wang’s A Lan in Intrepid Hero (1958), Qin’s Lin Jie in Nyulan Wuhao (Woman Basketball Player No 5) (1957) and Jin’s Kong Shuzhen in Youth in Our Village (1959).
Three years after graduating from university, in 1996, Pan became the host of a TV program on the film channel of China Central Television. Liujin Suiyue (Golden Years) ran from 1996 to 2014 focusing on old Chinese films, so Pan interviewed many artists from yesteryear.
In 2017, after a stint as a TV director, when Pan was considering making his first film, he naturally wanted to work on something that he was most familiar with and attached to.
“It’s meaningful if I can present the faces of those film stars from 40 or 50 years ago on the big screen today,” he said. “I want to show their professionalism and pure love for the art of acting.”
After an 18-month struggle with investment, Pan interviewed nearly 100 artists
aged 80 and above. He originally gave the documentary the name Chuxin (Original Aspiration).
In 2019, the film team decided to change the title to Yanyuan, shifting the focus onto the 22 film stars in the early 1960s, a vibrant period for the Chinese film industry.
“The works of these 22 artists have touched audiences for generations, and their film characters have become classics. Over the decades, they have still maintained their passion for film and are still role models as artists and people,” Pan said.
However, as many of them have died, the documentary features just eight of them, in addition to other actors and actresses.
One particularly touching moment of the documentary is when one of the interviewees, Zhang Jianyou, an actor in The Battle of Triangle Hill, could not hold back his tears.
In April 1956, three years after the end of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-53), a cast of more than 100 people went to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to visit Triangle Hill in person for the making of a film about the ferocious battle. Before they reached the hill, the scenery was so beautiful that people were filled with joy.
But when they arrived at the battlefield, they were shocked to see not a single green tree in sight because in the 43 days from Oct 14 to Nov 25, 1952, shellfire had obliterated the landscape.
The film, screened on Dec 1, 1956, was adapted from a script titled Twenty-four Days. The cast’s military adviser was one of the three survivors of the 120-strong detachment of Chinese soldiers that fought on the hill for 24 days, Zhang said, when he stopped and tried to hold back his tears before the lens.
“Actually, Zhang played a very small role in that movie with only a two-minute performance in total. Even so, he said, as an actor, he played his role not just with skill, but with his heart,” Pan said. “He told me that playing in that movie is the most significant thing in his life of more than 80 years.”
Zhang, full of excitement when recalling the experience, was still very emotional after the interview was done.
“These old artists are very simple, natural, kind and passionate,” Pan said. “They love film and are very grateful to their audience. I just want to record their feelings and emotion faithfully.”
For example, Tian Hua, who was born in 1928 and lost her mother at an early age, said in the documentary that she is a daughter of the Communist Party of China.
“She has believed that all her life. It’s not something that I specifically highlight to enhance the theme of the film,” Pan said.
In 93 minutes, people can see clips from more than 10 classic movies that include the 13 artists featured in the documentary. The clips, with vivid characters and scenes they created in their youth, will bring back memories about the good old days.
“So, privately, it’s a love letter that I devote to those artists that I have met in the last 25 years. In 2014, Liujin Suiyue was taken off the air, and I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to them. This is the official goodbye,” Pan said.