About MiCLatest UpdatesConcert ListConcert-ToursPast ConcertsConcert ProducersMusic Sheets Submit a ConcertContact MICWhat Is Film Music?Concert Music based on film musicSoundtrack RadiosLinksPrivacy Notes
Get all concert-info as soon as it's published with our
feed.
19 January 2025 Eindhoven (Netherlands)
Netherlands Silent Film Festival: Land In Focus China – Way Down West
Meg Morley (piano) - Pand P Eindhoven
Program Info: Land In Focus China – Way Down West (Hou Yao, 1927)
On the way to his National Exam, the young student Chang Kung stops at a monastery. Here he happens to have his eye on the Prime Minister's daughter, Cui Yingying. He falls in love immediately, but the class difference makes their love impossible. A local villain has also noticed Yingying's beauty and devises a plan to kidnap her. Out of sheer desperation, Yingying's mother promises her daughter's hand in marriage to whoever can defeat the bandits.
Director Hou Yao and screenwriter Pu Shunqing based the film on the timeless play “Romance of the Western Chamber” by Wang Shifu, still one of the most popular romantic comedies in China.
Shunqing, the first Chinese female screenwriter, and her husband Hou wanted to translate the classic text as accurately as possible to the cinema screen and created a drama film with sweeping landscapes (often shot on location), elegantly choreographed fight scenes, a surprising dream sequence and even a shadow play.
Way Down West is one of the first Chinese films to be shown in the West. The copy shown is a greatly abridged European version that was distributed via Paris to various European cinema clubs.
feed.
