Chinese Literature

Scene from “Liang Shan-po and Chu Ying-tai”

When Liang gets back to school, he, too, has a talk with the schoolmaster’s

wife. Chu, she tells him, has no younger sister: she is a girl herself. Liang is overjoyed.

But when he presents himself at Chu’s home. he has a rude awakening. Chu Ying-tai is torn with sorrow. Her father has betrothed her, against her will, to the son of a rich and powerful local magnate. By all the standards of the time it is a splendid match, and despite Chu’s pleadings and tears her father insists that the marriage shall take place. The two lovers bid one another a sad farewell. Since they cannot marry in life, they vow to be together to death.

Not long after, Liang Shan-po dies of a broken heart. Chu Ying-tai’s wedding day comes, but she refuses to proceed to the bridegroom’s home until she is allowed to dress in mourning and visit Liang’s tomb. She throws herself down before it, Weeping bitterly, A sudden storm arises. Lightning rends the tomb, and Chu throws herself into the gaping hole, and the tomb once more closes over her.

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The storm passes as suddenly as it arose. A brilliant rainbow spans the sky. The sun shines from a clear sky. From the tomb emerge two butterflies the transformed lovers—and sport happily among the flowers. Liang Shan-po and Chu Ying-tai are united at last.

The film is directed by Sang Hu. The title roles are played by Yuan Hsueh-fen and Fan Jui-chuan, the most famous: actresses in Shaohsing opera, (It should be noted that in this class of opera all roles are played by women.) The fim brings to the screen all the features which have made Shaohsing opera so popularits vivid characterisation, its splendid costumes and stage-craft, its delicate blend of song, dance and mime, perhaps even heightened by the closer impact of the sereen and by a judicious shortening of the full-length opera.

The art director of the film is Professor Chang Kuang-yu of the Central Institute of Fine Arts, who has gone to enormous pains to reproduce the authentie architecture, drawings, costumes and embroidery of the period.