88 Films: Hsi Shih: Beauty of Beauties (1965) - The Restoration Of A Taiwanese Historical Epic, Reviewed
All Images Courtesy: 88 Films/TFAI88 Films has carved out an impressive niche for themselves as one of the foremost distributors of Chinese cinema in the west. But their latest release is something rather unique among their catalogue. The 1965 historical epic Hsi Shih: Beauty of Beauties is, for one thing, a Mandarin-language Taiwanese film, when 88 mostly specializes in Cantonese-language Hong Kong cinema. But more importantly, it was at the time by far the most expensive Chinese film ever made: a grandiose production of truly spectacular scope, with enormous sets and legions of extras on the old-school-film-spectacle level of Ben Hur or Gone With the Wind. Especially for the Taiwanese film industry, which was far less well-established than the Hong Kong industry in 1965, this was an astonishingly ambitious project. It is also, surprisingly for a film of this grandeur and magnitude, one that has for many years been lost to time. Long unavailable, never officially released in the west, and only surviving in the shorter of its two cuts. Most of 88’s Chinese cinema (almost entirely Hong Kong cinema) releases have focused on the sort of genre fare – gun-heavy action, martial arts films, fantasy – which have become cult hits all around the world, and which many westerners immediately associate with Chinese film. Hsi Shih: Beauty of Beauties is an altogether different kind of film: a sweeping, old-fashioned period piece which is more a historical-drama chamber-piece than anything else, and decidedly light on the action. As such, it may be a different kind of Chinese film than many western cinephiles, or 88 Films collectors, are used to seeing. It will definitely be of more interest to those looking to seriously study Chinese cinema, or world cinema more broadly, than it will be to those looking for action-packed popcorn entertainment. But 88 Films have done something pretty wonderful here, preserving a truly significant, and long overlooked and neglected, piece of Taiwanese film culture on a wonderful blu-ray package. THE FILM: Set in China’s Warring States period, circa 400 BC, Hsi Shih: Beauty of Beauties tells the story of two kingdoms in a bitter, decades-long war with one another. The Yueh kingdom, lead by a kind and noble king who genuinely cares about his people, and the Wu kingdom, lead by a sadistic, lecherous, and power-hungry king with ambitions of seizing control of all of China. The film begins as the Wu kingdom has subjugated the Yueh kingdom and sent its king into a years-long exile. When he returns, he hatches a plan to get revenge on Wu, over a long game involving not only military strategy, but court intrigue and espionage. The titular beauty, Hsi Shih, is sent to the Wu state by Yueh ostensibly as a concubine, for a contractually-obligated gift of fealty from the oppressed king to the oppressor. But in reality she is a trained diplomat and spy, who has been sent in to manipulate the Wu state from within: to seduce the Wu king, and over years manipulate him to suit the Yueh agenda and protect the Yueh state’s plan to build a massive army big enough to get revenge. The film follows this story of the better part of 20 years, as Hsi Shih and the Yueh king play out their long game. Hsi Shih was originally filmed and released as a two-part epic, with the two halves released a couple months apart. The film was then re-released as a condensed omnibus version, with the two feature-length halves re-edited down into a single 2.5 hour film. The longer version has sadly been totally lost to time, and the shorter omnibus version is all that survives, and is what we are getting on this disc. Watching it, it is immediately obvious how cut down the movie is, especially in the first half. The events of the early part of the film speed by at a very fast pace, with the sadness of the Yueh king’s exile and the triumph of his return three years later separated by just a couple minutes of screen time, in a way which is unavoidably jarring. In the original cut, I suspect there would have been much more time in-between those scenes. But even in this condensed version, it is still a very long film, and it does feel like it. Especially in the first half, as the setting up of all the political aspects is rather convoluted and takes quite a bit of time. The film in the first half feels a bit turgidly paced, even as it also feels obviously chopped down. Despite the grandiose scale of the production and the massive amount of extras in the crowd scenes, there is very little in the way of actual battle, and the film is almost entirely dialogue and court intrigue, in a way that definitely requires patience. However this patience does pay off, as the film gets much stronger in the back half, once the allegiances and adversaries are defined, and Hsi Shih is in the palace of the villainous king and acting as a spy/manipulator. Once the political maneuvering and scheming and double-bluffs of court intrigu
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| All Images Courtesy: 88 Films/TFAI |
88 Films has carved out an impressive niche for themselves as one of the foremost distributors of Chinese cinema in the west. But their latest release is something rather unique among their catalogue. The 1965 historical epic Hsi Shih: Beauty of Beauties is, for one thing, a Mandarin-language Taiwanese film, when 88 mostly specializes in Cantonese-language Hong Kong cinema. But more importantly, it was at the time by far the most expensive Chinese film ever made: a grandiose production of truly spectacular scope, with enormous sets and legions of extras on the old-school-film-spectacle level of Ben Hur or Gone With the Wind. Especially for the Taiwanese film industry, which was far less well-established than the Hong Kong industry in 1965, this was an astonishingly ambitious project. It is also, surprisingly for a film of this grandeur and magnitude, one that has for many years been lost to time. Long unavailable, never officially released in the west, and only surviving in the shorter of its two cuts.
Most of 88’s Chinese cinema (almost entirely Hong Kong cinema) releases have focused on the sort of genre fare – gun-heavy action, martial arts films, fantasy – which have become cult hits all around the world, and which many westerners immediately associate with Chinese film. Hsi Shih: Beauty of Beauties is an altogether different kind of film: a sweeping, old-fashioned period piece which is more a historical-drama chamber-piece than anything else, and decidedly light on the action. As such, it may be a different kind of Chinese film than many western cinephiles, or 88 Films collectors, are used to seeing. It will definitely be of more interest to those looking to seriously study Chinese cinema, or world cinema more broadly, than it will be to those looking for action-packed popcorn entertainment. But 88 Films have done something pretty wonderful here, preserving a truly significant, and long overlooked and neglected, piece of Taiwanese film culture on a wonderful blu-ray package.
THE FILM:
Set in China’s Warring States period, circa 400 BC, Hsi Shih: Beauty of Beauties tells the story of two kingdoms in a bitter, decades-long war with one another. The Yueh kingdom, lead by a kind and noble king who genuinely cares about his people, and the Wu kingdom, lead by a sadistic, lecherous, and power-hungry king with ambitions of seizing control of all of China. The film begins as the Wu kingdom has subjugated the Yueh kingdom and sent its king into a years-long exile. When he returns, he hatches a plan to get revenge on Wu, over a long game involving not only military strategy, but court intrigue and espionage. The titular beauty, Hsi Shih, is sent to the Wu state by Yueh ostensibly as a concubine, for a contractually-obligated gift of fealty from the oppressed king to the oppressor. But in reality she is a trained diplomat and spy, who has been sent in to manipulate the Wu state from within: to seduce the Wu king, and over years manipulate him to suit the Yueh agenda and protect the Yueh state’s plan to build a massive army big enough to get revenge. The film follows this story of the better part of 20 years, as Hsi Shih and the Yueh king play out their long game.
Hsi Shih was originally filmed and released as a two-part epic, with the two halves released a couple months apart. The film was then re-released as a condensed omnibus version, with the two feature-length halves re-edited down into a single 2.5 hour film. The longer version has sadly been totally lost to time, and the shorter omnibus version is all that survives, and is what we are getting on this disc. Watching it, it is immediately obvious how cut down the movie is, especially in the first half. The events of the early part of the film speed by at a very fast pace, with the sadness of the Yueh king’s exile and the triumph of his return three years later separated by just a couple minutes of screen time, in a way which is unavoidably jarring. In the original cut, I suspect there would have been much more time in-between those scenes.
But even in this condensed version, it is still a very long film, and it does feel like it. Especially in the first half, as the setting up of all the political aspects is rather convoluted and takes quite a bit of time. The film in the first half feels a bit turgidly paced, even as it also feels obviously chopped down. Despite the grandiose scale of the production and the massive amount of extras in the crowd scenes, there is very little in the way of actual battle, and the film is almost entirely dialogue and court intrigue, in a way that definitely requires patience.
However this patience does pay off, as the film gets much stronger in the back half, once the allegiances and adversaries are defined, and Hsi Shih is in the palace of the villainous king and acting as a spy/manipulator. Once the political maneuvering and scheming and double-bluffs of court intrigue get going, the film becomes far more compelling, and takes on a sense of suspense that I found largely absent from the first half. I consistently enjoyed the back half of this movie quite a bit, and felt that it made good on its grand ambitions. Due to the film being chopped down into this omnibus version, the back half does still have some choppy moments where the plot jumps forward, but for the most part it works quite well.
Hsi Shih: Beauty of Beauties is undeniably a mixed bag. An old-school epic film stuck in an unfortunately compromised edit, which somehow manages to nonetheless feel a bit too long and slowly paced despite also being obviously cut down in ways that harm the narrative. And yet the scope and grandeur of the production remains quite breathtaking, and once the stage is set and the plot can really get moving, it is a very compelling film. It is definitely uneven and flawed, in some ways inherent to the film and in some ways forced by its compromised edit, but it is also very worthwhile and ambitious, especially for those seeking a larger understanding of the history of Chinese cinema. It won’t be for everyone, but if it sounds intriguing to you, absolutely check it out – it is a piece of history well worth preserving and experiencing.
THE 88 FILMS DISC:
88 Films presents Hsi Shih in a brand-new 4k restoration provided by the Taiwan Film & Audiovisual Institute, and it looks amazing – in a particular context. The scan was done from the original negative, cut down to the shorter omnibus version, but this was the only surviving 35mm element of the film, and time had not been kind to it. The negative was VERY worn and deteriorated, with a lot of issues like damage, missing frames and color-fading, and the TFAI had their hands full – as a before-and-after featurette about the restoration shows. Considering that they were working with a heavily compromised 35mm source, it is incredible what they were able to do with it. Detail is strong, remaining damage is minimal to none, and at its best the colors look very nice.
However, the color is the area where this transfer struggles the most. Portions of the film had severely faded colors – and colors that were severely faded on odd ways, fluctuating in and out like one half of a reel was damaged. The TFAI restoration team did their best to fix this, but the colors still clearly fluctuate in a way that is visible and sometimes distracting, particularly in one especially bad portion of the last act. It is clear that they did their best to mitigate this, but that they were fighting an uphill battle against the deterioration of the nearly 60 year old film element. Still, all things considered, their restoration work is nothing short of miraculous, and the film looks beautiful.
The extras on the 88 Films limited edition are not that plentiful, but are decently substantial. Besides the before-and-after comparison about the film’s restoration (which again, is very useful for perspective of just what a miraculous job the TFAI did under the circumstances), the two new extras are both film scholar pieces, putting the film into historical perspective. On the disc there is an interview with film scholar Tony Rayns about the film, and in the booklet in the limited edition package there is an essay by scholar Tom Cunliffe. The essay is very good; the interview is very informative but rather dry. Both, however, add up to give a very good perspective on the film and its production, and where it fits in the historical pantheon of Chinese cinema. Certainly not the most extras we’ve seen on an 88 Films release, but for a more niche title like this that is to be expected, and the extras that are here are solid ones.
In Conclusion:
Hsi Shih: Beauty of Beauties is a fascinating, beautiful, and ambitious, although quite flawed and in this version highly compromised, film. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, and certainly is not as accessible and enjoyable as the Hong Kong action films that 88 has been putting out such stellar releases of. But it is very worthwhile, especially if you have a serious interest in the history of Chinese cinema, or the history of world cinema as a whole. Those with more historical interests in films will love the opportunity to see Hsi Shih, and it is wonderful that 88 Films has finally made it readily available in the west.
Their disc is very good: it may not have much in the way of extras, but what is there is quite informative and does a good job of contextualizing the film, and the limited edition packaging is beautiful. The new 4k transfer by TFAI is pretty amazing, once you consider that it was done from such a highly damaged and compromised source. The visual flaws are inevitable, but it is unbelievable that they got it to look as great as it does. Overall it is a very very nice release, and well worth picking up if you are interested in the film.
- Christopher S. Jordan
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