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House of the Lute
1
A film directed by Lau Shing Hon,3 1979 |
慾火焚琴
2
劉成漢作品 Images from House of the Lute (enlarge) 4 |
At present this 90 minute Cantonese feature film seems to be the only feature film that uses guqin throughout (see Appendix, Guqin in film). I wrote, played and arranged all of the music using qin except for one segment in the middle (30.26 - 39.52 of the VCD), which has music by then Cheung Chau neighbor Colin Churchill (with bongos by Au Yiu Kwok5). The film tells the story of what happens when an old man with a beautiful young wife hires a young gardener. The director has the old man engage in the scholar's Four Arts, deciding to represent this by having a film score using only guqin. The film starred (see image, left to right), Lok Bec-Kay, Kwan Hoi-Shan, Simon Yam Tat-wah, and Chan Lup-Pun.6
Except for Colin's guitar and flute music during the scenes showing the young lovers going into the city, the music is all solo guqin played by me. Some of it is straightforward traditional music, some has the timing altered to fit the movements (I had to teach Kwan Hoi-Shan to pretend to play qin in time with my recording, then where necessary alter the sound track to better fit his hand movements), some is motifs from these pieces selected to fit the scenes, some has been electronically altered to enhance the mood. Most of the music came from four Shen Qi Mi Pu melodies. These melodies traditionally have certain associations which were to a certain extent used in making the film score:
This, of course, could mean either that the film score was designed for people who were familiar with these melodies, but who might then consider these associations too obvious; or that this was intended to be my little secret, and thus irrelevant to the listener.
The following timings from my DVD of the film highlight use of motifs from these melodies:
| 00.00 | "Video Village" |
| 00.06 | Opening credits (Meihua Sannong) |
| 01.34 | Opening Scene: Ah Shek comes to 幽蘆 You Lu, home of Mr. Lui |
| 03.58 | Ah Shek enters house (Tianfeng Huanpei), begins work |
| 10.26 | Dinner (Jiu Kuang at 10.58) |
| 15.14 | Morning in study: Shen Qi Mi Pu tablature and qin called Scourge of the Rat (鼠畏 Shu Wei) |
| 20.43 | Mr. Lui's evening bath |
| 28.55 | Lonely Mr. Lui plays Zhi Zhao Fei in garden |
| 38.45 | Hong Kong (music by Colin Churchill) |
| 48.03 | Return to You Lu; dissonance for jealousy and plotting |
| 61.14 | Burning the qin |
| 92.18 | End of film; silent credits |
| 93.20 | end |
Under Acquiring a Qin there is a relevant comment regarding the qin seen (but not heard) in this film.
The first review was in the South China Morning Post 19 March 1980.7 In 1979 it had been invited for competition in the Chicago International Film Festival; it then was shown in Edinburg, Mannheim, London National Film Theatre and the Hong Kong International Film Festival.
As of December 2009 "162manman" in Hong Kong had uploaded to Youtube the film in 12 segments, but this was subsequently removed because of "terms of use violation"; the director is currently trying to sell the internet rights.
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a
separate page)
1
House of the Lute (慾火焚琴 Yu Huo Fen Qin)
There is further information on this film on various sites including www.kowloonside.com. Regarding the use of "lute" in the title, see
Qin: lute or zither?.
(Return)
2
慾火焚琴
The Cantonese pronunciation of this in the Yale system is Yuk Fo Fan Kam"; the director suggested "Yuk For Fun Kum". For some reason the online transliteration of the film title into Cantonese on other sites seems always to be given as Yuk feng fai kam, clearly a mistake as well as a testimony to how the tendency for people to build up their website by blindly copying information off other websites sometimes leads to a spread of misinformation.
(Return)
3
Lau Shing Hon (劉成漢; mandarin: Liu Chenghan)
In addition to being a film director, Lau Shing Hon is also a professor of film in Hong Kong. There are further details on various websites such as
hkmdb.com, and he has a blog at liuchenghan.blshe.com/.
(Return)
4
Images
See also the poster.
(Return)
6
Lead actors
洛碧琪 Lok Bec-Kay, 關海山 Kwan Hoi-Shan, 任達華 Simon Yam Tat-wah, and 陳立品 Chan Lup-Pun.
(Return)
7
Review
By Barry Girling; see .jpg copy.
(Return)
Guqin ("old qin") music can be very effectively used for a film score. My first effort at this was providing music for the Hong Kong feature film House of the Lute (see above). Doing this work brought up for me interesting questions about intercultural clichés. Unfortunately, to my knowledge no film since House of the Lute has tried to take advantage of the unique and evocative sounds of a qin with silk strings. (This seems to be part of a larger problem with film directors, Asian film directors in particular: often when they film a period drama they make a show of trying to get story, costumes, etc., historically correct, but then when it comes to the sound track they just throw in some banal Western film music.)
Here are some examples of the qin as used in other films:
"The string breaking (a common metaphor for a troubled heart or being surprised) is symbolic of the parting of ways, and could represent an absolute separation. The Cantonese Chinese expression for this is 'tyun yun' (團圓) and it could be directly translated as 'breaking fate'. She is a ghost and he is a mortal and that fate that had briefly brought them together had at that point broken. They could never have been together anyway and they had to part so as to preserve the natural order of things."
Actually, the Cantonese expression 'tyun yun' should be written '斷絃', which has the same pronunciation; the characters literally mean 'breaking a string', but the meaning is breaking off a relationship.
Other versions of this title
(中文) are dated 1987 (remake of 1960), 1990 (A Chinese Ghost Story 2), 1991 (A Chinese Ghost Story 3), 1997 (remake in animation) and 2003 (a TV series of this title). Of these only the following are potentially relevant here:
Chinese Ghost Story Xiao Qian (1997, animated version, also Tsui Hark)
In sum, there are many ways qin can be utilized effectively in film scores, and not just in period films. However, a comparison of Chinese films made prior to the development of metal strings during the Cultural Revolution with those made afterwards shows clearly that this has led to not just a change in the basic sound of the qin, but also to a major change in attitude towards its musical use: it must somehow seem dramatic and exciting.
Return to top
or to the Guqin ToC
Appendix: Guqin in film
Details in progress (December 2009)
Qin music (always metal string) can be heard vaguely in the background during the opening credits and during a scene where Confucius arrives in Wei (1.15.05-1.16.00); one is shown sitting on a table in another scene (1.59.30), and it has a distinctive presence in the Faye Wong pop song during the closing credits (available on the DVD as a separate film clip). There is one scene showing Confucius playing qin, in a vignette during which he and his disciples are starving in Chen (from 38.45 then 41.45). There was once a qin melody on this theme
(Kongzi E), and the story is mentioned in the lyrics of an existing qin melody
(Yasheng Cao). What Confucius plays, however, is totally irrelevant: a modern metal string rendition of the 19th century version of
Liu Shui. The rest of the film music is totally bland Western film music with no connection whatsoever to any Chinese tradition. (The lead female character 衛南子 Wei Nanzi is identified elsewhere not as the qin playing virtuous
Woman of Wei but as one of the "Two Depraved Women of Wei" [q.v.].)
See also
further comment: the original uncut version has a scene where Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang show their likemindedness by successfully playing a qin "duet" together
(it repeats particularly flashy phrases from the melodies
Guangling San and the
modern Liu Shui as played by 趙家珍 Zhao Jiazhen).
In one scene two men shoot weapons from a pseudo-instrument that is a sort of qin and zheng hybrid.
This is perhaps the best known recent use of qin in film. The opening sequence shows a replica of an instrument (see picture) often considered a predecessor of the qin
(incorrectly, I believe); the actual music is played on a modern metal string qin by 劉麗 Liu Li, who apparently suggested motifs from the modern Liu Shui as a basis for
Tan Dun's composition.
Loosely based on the story of Gao Jianli and Emperor Qin Shi Huang as told in the Records of the Grand Historian
(see Wen Xing), it changes the original zhu into a qin; the qin is played by 李祥霆 Li Xiangting (further details to be added; compare The Emperor and the Assassin).
This TV drama aired in 1993 with five episodes. It tells of a corrupt magistrate who covets a "burnt tail qin" that is a family heirloom of 蔡玉媛 Cai Yuyuan. Shortly after 38.00 on a clip of the first episode (包青天之古琴怨（第1集）) Yuyuan tells her 相公 gentleman she would like to play him a melody; he says he would like to hear her play On a Rainy Night Send a Message North (? 夜雨寄北 Yeyu Jibei); the film then shows her hands playing a qin but it is guzheng music. Then at 02.30 of the second episode
() 宣大人 Magistrate Xuan says he would like to see her family's 神器蒙塵 treasure, a burnt tail qin; after 17.00, in a room filled with boxey guzhengs, the magistrate comes in and suddenly smashes one to bits, after which there is some discussion of his qins (referring to the zhengs?). I gave up after this.
This film is based on a 1967 novel by 金庸 Jin Yong (Louis Cha) with the same Chinese title, which translates literally as "Smiling Proud in Rivers and Lakes". "Rivers and lakes" often refers in modern popular literature to "vagabonds" or "wanderers" (see further under Lu Guimeng), hence the common English title for this film,
Smiling Proud Wanderer. The qin is essential to the original story, there is some reference to its philosophy, and a qin does appear on screen at important moments. In addition, the text also refers to a qin melody called 有所思 You Suo Si (I have found no further reference to this title). However, the film music is orchestral and totally devoid of any connection to qin music or traditional qin aesthetic.
(Another novel by Louis Cha, The Deer and the Cauldron [鹿鼎記 Lu Ding Ji], has been translated into English by John Minford. The original Chinese edition has 50 chapters, but in the translation these are re-arranged as 27 Chapters.)
I have heard of a guqin connection but I have not seen the film in a long time - this reference is here to remind me to look it up.
Also titled "The Ghost with Six Fingers" or "Six-Fingered Demon of the Lute", the film was based on a martial arts novel by 倪匡 Ni Kuang. The story features an all-powerful weapon called a 天魔琴 tianmo qin (demon qin, in English subtitles called a "magic lyre"). However, the "qin" shown in the film is actually a zheng (the
story outline on the 陳寶珠 Connie Chan website includes an image) and the music is zheng and/or orchestral. Two sequels (Part 2 and Part 3, or Episode 2 and Episode 3) were rushed out later in 1965. Since then there have been at least two more films with the same Chinese title, still loosely based on Ni Kuang's original story:
Demon of the Lute (六指琴魔 Liuzhi Qinmo, directed by 龍逸升 Lung Yat-Sing, 1983)
The "qin" here is a very strange looking instrument resembling a shield with six strings in the center.
This film is loosely adapted from the tale Nie Xiaoqian (聶小倩) in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (聊齋誌異
Liaozhai Zhiyi). The Liaozhai version (it has been translated by Wang Juan) does not mention qin or any other musical instrument, but the presence of the qin in the film, though short, is significant enough that the film's
poster shows the scene in which Nie (the actress is 樂蒂 Betty Loh Ti) plays it. In the film Nie is a female ghost living in an eerie temple, where she is forced to seduce young men so that a witch can kill them and drink their blood. A young scholar, 寧採臣 Ning Caichen (also written 𡩋采臣), comes to spend the night in the temple, where from 16.10 to 18.45 in this
online version (Chinese subtitles only) he hears Nie play the Mei'an qin melody Yu Lou Chun Xiao on a silk string qin (the actual player is not identified in the credits for the online version). At 20.15 a string breaks (斷絃 duan xian) when Ning enters her pavilion. According to the Wikipedia entry for the 1987 remake,
This version keeps the qin but modifies its treatment as well as other details of the story. Here, at about 19.40 of an online copy, just as the scholar is about to notice skeletons climbing in the attic above him, he is distracted by the sound of a guzheng; but then the images we see beginning at about 19.50 are of Nie strumming a qin. This zheng sound with qin images continues through 20.54, when we see the qin string break. Considering the fact that so few people today seem to be aware of how the abandonment of silk strings has changed the qin sound and aesthetic, perhaps it is not surprising that few viewers or critics seem either to have noticed or cared about this confusion of the instruments.
Here, the story is quite modified, its focus becoming "lighthearted slapstick comedy". Music not yet heard.
This film, as restored in 2009 by the
Hong Kong Film Archive (99'), has qin music played by 衛仲樂 Wei Zhongle. At ca. 37' Confucius plays in a class for his disciples; at ca. 71' he plays at a funeral for a disciple, then plays and sings a song with lyrics beginning "茫茫山野兮草木黃 Boundless is the wilderness, the grass is withered and yellowing." In another place there is only qin with cello (at ca. 49'). In general the music on the film is very sparse; this is also true of the qin music, which has a plain style with little ornamentation.
