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• 1 2023-07-26T09:46:55+00:00 The Western Wing 
  西廂記 (1940) 55 plain 2025-07-08T15:47:21+00:00

  Live Action Feature Film
  Director: Zhang Shichuan 張石川

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  LINKS TO THE FILM

  • The film on YouTube with no subtitles, except for songs.
  • The colorized version of the film on YouTube, no subtitles, except for songs.

  LINKS TO THE FILM’S BREAK-OUT HIT SONG

  • Record: a video of a record playing Zhou Xuan’s song that is posted on the streaming site bilibili by the user Sound Museum 声音博物馆
  • AI restored Music Video: a “music video” of Zhou Xuan’s hit song set to edited footage of the film—both the footage and the song have been restored with AI technology

  INFORMATION

  • Title: The Western Wing 西廂記
  • Year: 1940
  • Director: Zhang Shichuan 張石川
  • Cast: Zhou Xuan 周璇 (as Hongniang), Bai Yun 白云 (as Student Zhang), Murong Waner 慕容婉儿 (as Yingying)
  • Screenplay: Fan Yanqiao 范烟橋
  • Producer: Guohua Film Company 國畫影業公司, Star Motion Picture Company 明星影片公司 
  • Language: Mandarin Chinese
  • Duration: 93 minutes

  INTRODUCTION

  The songstress, or singing actress, became a key figure that linked the industries of film, music, and popular press in 1930s China. These entertainment industries formed what Andrew Jones has called a “media circuit,” a circuit in which songs featured in films became popular as records, records that in turn promoted the cinema. All the while, the audiovisual industries were supported by a vibrant print culture that disseminated text, image, and musical notation in the service of selling even more music records and movie tickets. Andrew Jones’ book Yellow Music documents this synergetic relationship between the cinema, print, and music industries, while Jean Ma’s Sounding the Modern Woman examines Republican period (1911-1949) Chinese media culture and its post-war iteration in Hong Kong cinema through the figure of the songstress. Taken together, the work of these two scholars can help us understand the 1940 film adaptation of The Western Wing.
  
  The film is a star vehicle for Zhou Xuan 周璇 (1920-1957), the singer known as the “Golden Voice” (jin sangzi 金嗓子) and one of the most popular songstresses of the “golden age” of Chinese cinema in the 1930s. Zhou’s career began with the musician and producer Li Jinhui’s 李锦晖 (1891-1967) Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe 明月歌舞團, an institution that produced most of the period’s popular singers, musicians, and actors. Working closely with film studios in Shanghai, Li pioneered the “hybrid genre” of shidai qu 时代曲 that combined “American jazz, Hollywood film music, and Chinese folk music” (Jones 6). Literally dubbed “modern songs,” shidai qu are also known as “yellow music” (huangse yinyue 黄色音樂), a pejorative term used by Chinese modernizing reformers and the socialist cultural establishment to underscore the genre’s suspect ties to a decadent commercial culture. And indeed, Zhou Xuan’s career is deeply enmeshed in Shanghai’s historical popular media culture and its nostalgic afterlives in the Chinese-language media cultures of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. 
  
  The 1940 Western Wing contributed an enduring musical artefact to this media circuit, that is, the romantic shidai qu “A Full Moon and Beautiful Flowers” 月圓花好 composed by celebrated writer and lyricist Fan Yanqiao 范烟橋 (1894-1967). Originally sung by Zhou Xuan’s Hongniang in the film, the song was concurrently issued as a 78 shellac record by Pathé 上海百代公司, one of Shanghai’s biggest record companies. It quickly became a hit, as did two later collaborations between Zhou and Fan, “The Blooming Years” 花样的年華 and “Shanghai Nights” 夜上海, both equally iconic Shanghai jazz songs. Much like these two famous songs, “Full Moon” was covered by various pop stars in the 20^th century, especially Mandarin language singers from Taiwan, who carried on the legacy of shidai qu while the musical style in the newly formed People’s Republic of China turned away from the commercial sounds of old Shanghai. 

  PLOT SUMMARY

  The 1940 film adaptation begins in the temple, where Scholar Zhang 張生 has just arrived and is being shown the grounds. On his tour, he notices Cui Yingying 崔鶯鶯 and her maid Hongniang 紅娘 and is immediately smitten with the young lady. He arranges to see her again by joining a temple ceremony in which the family pays their respects to the deceased patriarch. Later, the two exchange poems across a garden wall, further confirming their growing attraction. When the bandit Sun Feihu 孫飛虎 demands that Yingying marry him, Student Zhang devises a strategy to save her by enlisting the help of his friend General White Horse 白馬将軍. He then expects Yingying’s mother to make good on her promise to wed her daughter to anyone who saved her from the bandit. Madam Cui, however, reneges on her promise. Student Zhang is devastated and falls ill, recovering only when he realizes that Yingying does return his affections. With Hongniang’s help, the two consummate their romance, but are quickly found out by Madam Cui. She finally agrees to the match but demands that Student Zhang pass the imperial exams before they marry. After he goes off, however, she again betrays Student Zhang and plans a more advantageous match. Luckily, Student Zhang, having successfully passed his exams, returns in time to stop the wedding, again helped by the authority of his friend the general, and the lovers are happily reunited.

  THEME: Zhou Xuan’s Hongniang, the Intermedial Songstress

  
  The 1940 Western Wing film was a media event, a “mega production” (juzhi 巨制 ) that featured musical performance, elaborate sets, and rich costumes. Although multiple actors sing throughout the film as they would in a Chinese opera film, this Western Wing represents a blend of the “opera film” (xiqu pian 戲曲片) and the “musical film” (gechang pian 歌唱片) genres. “Modern song” (shidai qu 时代曲) musical numbers are interjected into the narrative as they are in Hollywood musicals, popular in China throughout the 1930s, but characters also deliver lines of dialogue in song. Whenever characters break into song, the symbiotic relationship between cinema and the music industry is underscored visually: the title, lyricist, and composer of each song appears on screen. Such film songs are literally called “interjected songs” (chaqu 插曲) and function as moments of musical pleasure as well as narrative supplement. The film’s first chaqu, for example, is “The Butterfly Tune.” The song’s title and credits appear on screen just before Zhou Xuan, as Hongniang, prompts Yingying to look at the butterflies in the garden and begins singing (fig. 2).
  
  The song’s lyrics appear as subtitles as she sings:
  
  
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Subtitles	CTC Translation
  红娘：小姐，你看！	Hongniang: Miss, look!
  红娘 [唱]：春光好春色满园林	Hongniang (singing): The spring scenery is lovely, spring colors fill the garden,
  红娘 [唱]：花儿开蝶儿採花粉	Hongniang (singing): Flowers bloom, butterflies gather pollen,
  红娘 [唱]：传了种儿结了果儿	Hongniang (singing): Spreading seeds, bearing fruit,
  红娘 [唱]：结了果儿没有蝶儿分	Hongniang (singing): But butterflies get no marks for bearing fruit,
  红娘 [唱]：为谁辛苦为谁忙	Hongniang (singing): For whom do they labor, for whom do they busy themselves?
  红娘 [唱]：谁懂得你的心	Hongniang (singing): Who knows your heart?
  法聪：长相公，你怎么看呆了？	Facong: Young master, what are you gaping at?
  张生：我从来没有见过这样的美人。	Student Zhang: I’ve never seen such a beauty!

  
  
  As she sings, the two women walk across an ornate bridge and enjoy watching the butterflies that flutter around them. When Hongniang reaches the middle of the song (“But butterflies get no marks for bearing fruit”), the film cuts to a doorway from which Student Zhang looks at the two women, stupefied (fig. 3). When Hongniang finishes her song, she realizes that the young man is staring at them and that Yingying is looking back at him (their gazes are evident in close shots of their faces, fig. 4 & fig. 5). 
  
  
  
  
  Zhou Xuan’s performance does a lot of work in this scene. She is foregrounded as a singer at the beginning of the story, a move that engages the audience through her celebrity status. While Student Zhang is clearly staring at Yingying (the shot-reverse-shot film grammar makes his point of interest obvious), when he discusses the women with the monk Facong after the women leave, he first asks about the identity of the singer. Yingying may be lovely to look at, but Zhou Xuan’s voice is given priority even in the dialogue. Within the film’s diegesis, the song introduces Hongniang the maid as a crucial musical and visual mediator between the lovers. The butterflies in her song lyrics give us a first clue—like the butterflies that bring together pollen and flower, Hongniang’s actions enable coupling, i.e., the union of the film’s two lovers. The song’s note of frustration that this work is not appreciated and its final question, “Who knows your heart?” suggest that Hongniang is not entirely happy with her subordinate role. Jean Ma writes of the function of song in the Chinese musical film: “The songstress anchors a representational system in which speech must periodically give way to song, allowing the female voice to come to the fore as a locus of dramatic and affective intensity” (6). In this scene, the dramatic intensity cuts two ways: it highlights the budding romance between Student Zhang and Yingying, while calling attention to Hongniang as a mediator who ultimately remains outside the romance. 
  
  
   
  Visually, the film likewise both relies on Hongniang and displaces her. In the shots above (fig. 6 & fig. 7), she looks askance between Yingying and Student Zhang, becoming aware of the potentially scandalous chemistry between the two. This realization marks the moment as a significant one for the audience. It also occurs literally to the side of the two lovers’ eyeline match, leaving Hongniang just outside the romance that her song seems to have initiated (especially if we assume her singing voice attracted the men to the garden in the first place).
  
  Hongniang’s frustration and detachment is made most obvious in the song that became a hit record, “A Full Moon and Beautiful Flowers.” This song, however, is conspicuously absent in the cut of the film that has been made available online by CCTV 6, a division of China’s central television station that serves as China’s “classic film” channel. It is likely that sections of the film were lost to wartime destruction and/or due to poor storage conditions, an unfortunate situation all too common in Chinese film history. According to the script, a summary of which was published in a special issue of the film magazine Gold City Monthly 金城月刊 concurrently with the film’s release, Hongniang is supposed to sing this romantic ballad while Student Zhang and Yingying are sexually intimate with one another in his quarters. 
  
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Subtitles	CTC Translation
  张生：小姐！	Student Zhang: Miss!
  红娘：我老是上小姐的当！	Hongniang: I’m always getting taken in by miss.

  
  In the extant film, Hongniang brings Yingying to Student Zhang’s door (fig. 8). He pulls her into the room and then returns to the door to close it (fig. 9). Hongniang seems taken aback by the abruptly shut door and looks in through the lattice (fig. 10). She pouts that she’s a dupe and walks away. 
  
  
  
  
  The film then cuts to another scene. The script printed in the magazine, however, runs several more lines of poetic dialogue and then indicates that Hongniang sings the film’s signature song.
   
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Subtitles	CTC Translation
  红娘 : 浮云渐开，明月正圆。	Hongniang: Floating clouds gradually part, the moon is just getting full.
  红娘：池中两鸳鸯，渐游渐近。	Hongniang: Two mandarin ducks in the pond swim closer and closer together.
  红娘：并头莲，风吹微动。	Hongniang: A twin lotus moves slightly in the wind.
  红娘 [唱]：浮云散，月明照人来	Hongniang (singing): Floating clouds scatter, the moon shines on people,
  红娘 [唱]：团圆美满今宵最	Hongniang (singing): A beautiful reunion fills this splendid night,
  红娘 [唱]：清浅池塘，鸳鸯戏水	Hongniang (singing): Mandarin ducks play in a limpid pond,
  红娘 [唱]：红裳翠盖，并蒂莲开	Hongniang (singing): A red dress and a green cover, twin lotuses bloom,
  红娘 [唱]：双双对对，恩恩爱爱	Hongniang (singing): A couple, a pair deeply in love,
  红娘 [唱]：这软风儿，向着好花吹	Hongniang (singing): A soft breeze blows toward beautiful flowers,
  红娘 [唱]：柔情蜜语满人间	Hongniang (singing): Tender feelings and honeyed words fill the air.

  
  Again, Hongniang’s musical performance serves to both mediate the others’ romance and highlight her own affective state. The romantic pleasures happening just beyond the door are displaced for the audience into the song’s aural and poetic pleasures. We cannot be sure if Hongniang continued peeking in through the latticed door, but the lyrics suggest (rather mildly) a romantic coupling. Hongniang is not directly party to the lovers’ romance, but the audience is invited to vicariously experience the love scene through her song. She is again both crucial to mediating romantic feelings (including her own desires) and detached from a romantic union.
  
  The song’s absence from the film may prevent us from seeing Zhou Xuan’s performance, but it also prompts us to discover how film songs themselves could be detached from the cinema per se and circulate in other media. “Full Moon” was as much part of The Western Wing as it was a hit single that functioned more generally a generic love song. It was available both as a record and circulated in musical notation published in film magazines and special collections of popular songs. The record turned the film song into an object that allowed listeners to transport Zhou Xuan’s cinematic voice into the more intimate space of the home. It not only allows Hongniang to transcend the boundaries of film as Zhou Xuan the songstress, but also allows Zhou Xuan the historical figure to transcend her time and participate in contemporary audiovisual culture as a “reanimated” digital voice. 
  
  A video (linked here) on the Chinese streaming site bilibili can give us a sense of listening to the record (seen as a screenshot in fig. 11). Part of a global nostalgic trend that celebrates the materiality of the record, the clip is a long take of the actual 1940 record as it plays back Zhou Xuan’s song. In addition to seeing the physical object, we hear the noise generated in the playback. The video insists on a visual and aural authenticity; seeing and hearing the wear and tear of the record produces an “aura” that is meant to affectively transport its viewers in time to the 1940s. Zhou Xuan’s photograph, on the right side of the slip, provides further visual cues for the imagination. In a sense, the video recreates a lost performance, perhaps not of the film per se, but of Republican Shanghai’s media culture.
  
  
  Hongniang’s lost song has likewise been resurrected by another nostalgic internet trend, namely, AI restoration. Various restored versions of Zhou Xuan’s voice exists online, this clip on YouTube is an instructive example. In addition to offering a crisp rendition of the original song (all the record’s sound artefact removed), the video includes AI-colorized footage from the film. It is a familiar scene, the moments in the garden when Hongniang sings the “Butterfly Tune.” The video even includes subtitles to the song’s lyrics that replace the original lyrics visible in this scene with the new song. Though not copied exactly, the new font even echoes the handwritten characters original to the 1940s film (see fig. 12 & fig. 13 for comparison). 
   
  
  This scene is not a surprising choice of footage to accompany the iconic “Full Moon.” As analyzed above, it is the moment in which the film introduces its star Zhou Xuan and inaugurates its romance between Yingying and Student Zhang, the extradiegetic attraction of the singer amplifies the diegetic pleasure of the romantic narrative. Now, however, Zhou Xuan’s initial appearance and the lovers’ initial meeting are set to the film’s most famous song. It’s unclear when the original footage of “Full Moon” was lost, but because the film chaqu (interjected song) existed in a media system that capitalized on its remediation and circulation as a pop song that was detachable from the film, it can now be “reattached” in an improvised Western Wing “music video.” The situation confirms Jean Ma’s argument that in addition to being a historical avatar of the golden age of Shanghai film and jazz, the songstress, “also challenges us to pay attention to those large-scale temporal connections and cross-regional transactions that transcend the boundaries of any individual milieu” (4). In the case of The Western Wing, the historical transport is redoubled—not only does Zhou Xuan’s voice bring the opera into the new media environment of the 1940s, her continuing popularity as an icon of Republican period culture brings the 1940 The Western Wing back as an object of nostalgic media fascination to contemporary audiences.

  WORKS CONSULTED CLICK TO EXPAND/COLLAPSE

  Jones, Andrew. Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Jazz Age. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997.

  Ma, Jean. Sounding the Modern Woman: The Songstress in Chinese Cinema. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015.

  AUTHOR

  Julia Keblinska