The Arch

Shot independently, THE ARCH was the first Hong Kong film to achieve international recognition when it showed at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 1969. It preceded—and no doubt influenced— later Hong Kong New Waves. Its style is an amalgam of Western arthouse aesthetics, including elliptical editing and dreamy superimpositions, and classical Chinese traditions like watercolour scroll painting. Its director T’ang Shushuen was the first prominent woman director in Hong Kong. Though set in feudal China, T’ang’s approach is anything but traditional. Like the filmmaker, the widow Madam Tung (Lisa Lu) feels the pull of competing forces. When Captain Yang (Roy Chiao) takes quarter at her home, she is torn between her desire and her public display of virtue, which will soon be honoured with a ceremonial arch. Only a shared glance, a line of poetry and an accidental touch confirm what they both refuse to acknowledge otherwise. Instead of words, their romance is expressed in raindrops splattering on the courtyard tile, shot by Subrata Mitra, Satyajit Ray’s cinematographer; arresting freeze frames added by the film’s editor Les Blank; and the pipa, an ancient three-stringed lute, playing a modern score by turns plaintive and brisk. (Genevieve Yue)

In the presence of T’ang Shushuen.

T’ang Shushuen: CHINA BEHIND (1974), SUP SAP BUP DUP (1975), THE HONG KONG TYCOON (1979)