In more than six decades of work in Taiwan cinema, director Lee Hsing (1930-2021) stood at the forefront of key film movements and became an industry elder statesman. Shanghai-born Lee, who turned to film and theatre after seeing Fei Mu’s Spring in a Small Town (1948), moved to Taiwan in 1949 and took up acting before shifting to assistant directing. His first film as director, the comedy Brother Liu and Brother Wang on the Roads in Taiwan (1958, co-directed with Zhang Fangxia and Tian Feng), became a hit and sparked a cascade of Taiwanese-language films that kept Lee busy for several years. Lee made his first Mandarin film with the family comedy-drama Our Neighbors (1963). Another box office success, Our Neighbors prompted the nationalist government’s Central Motion Picture Corporation to hire Lee for a run of pictures beginning with the first Taiwan colour film, Oyster Girl (1964, co-directed by Lee Chia). The film launched a type of cinema dubbed “Healthy Realism” – a form influenced by Italian Neorealism and pushing wholesome themes and traditional values. Beautiful Duckling (1964), screening this year in Udine Far East Film’s mini-tribute to Lee, was the follow-up. Covering a brief crisis in a duck-farming family, the gorgeous light drama became a healthy realist landmark. It won Lee not just the first of his three Best Director trophies at the Golden Horse Awards, but also the first of his seven prizes for Best Film. Hou Hsiao-hsien, who early in his career was an assistant director for Lee, paid homage by inserting Beautiful Duckling footage into Dust in the Wind (1986).
Beyond “Healthy Realism”, Lee made 10 trendy melodramas based on romance novels by author Chiung Yao in the late 1960s and early ’70s (and opened up export markets in the process). The period drama Execution in Autumn (1972, with actors from Beautiful Duckling) was a huge success, and Lee shot an emotionally heavy biopic in My Native Land (1979). Also screening in Udine, My Native Land covered the dreams and family tumult of noted Taiwan writer Chung Li-ho. Lee’s final films were The Wheel of Life (1983), co-directed by King Hu and Pai Ching-jui, and The Heroic Pioneers (1986). As younger filmmakers rose in the New Taiwan Cinema movement, Lee turned to industry support, including efforts to boost cross-strait exchanges and chairmanship of the Golden Horse Executive Committee.
Lee’s cinema is re-emerging thanks to efforts by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, which has an in-house lab handling 2K and 4K restoration projects. After screening the restored Execution in Autumn in 2021, Udine Far East Film Festival is this year proud to present the world premieres of the Institute’s restorations of Beautiful Duckling and My Native Land.