The recent reception of director Chang Tso-chi’s Soul of a Demon [Hu die](2008) as a violent gangster film has distracted critics from a more in-depth and revealing investigation of this important contemporary director.8 This response has diverted audiences’ attention from the distinctive features of Chang’s work, and its deeply humanistic qualities. In some cases Chang’s work has been misapprehended as solely art cinema, lacking wider market appeal and more substantive critical attention. But this view is in sum inadequate, and to better understand the important significance of Chang’s achievements, a more comprehensive and detailed evaluation of his work is needed.
Chang Tso-chi’s Oeuvre
Chang Tso-chi is a key player in contemporary Taiwan cinema. Chang’s work is a combination of 1) themes and techniques inherited from the Taiwan New Cinema movement, 2) the similar stylistic significances Chang shares with his contemporaries, and 3) his own independent examination of arresting alternative themes and new production values.9 Chang’s rural upbringing has given his films a distinctly
8 For example, CMC, Chang’s Hong Kong cooperative company, marketed the film as a “gangster film.” See “The Gangster Film Soul of a Demon: Director Chang Tso-chi Fly with the CMC.”
Hitoradio.com. 22, March, 2007.〈http://www.hitoradio.com/news/6_1_1.php?news_id=48063.
9 Two other prominent directors of Chang‘s generation include Lin Cheng-sheng and Chen Kuo-fu.
grassroots and even bucolic flavor, and his narrative strategies have served a simple and romantic function, even when he has portrayed lower class oppression and lack of winning opportunity. His films feature a strategy known as “haunted realism,” which I will explore later in my analysis.
Chang’s career can be divided into three phases-- a learning period, followed by a period in which he developed his unique style, and his mature period. Dividing Chang’s career into three parts this way will provide a clear framework in which to understand the development of his aesthetics and famed magical realist stylistics.
Born in Jiayi in 1961 to a second-generation family that immigrated from China, Chang showed little interest in a film career in his youth. His attention was piqued, however during his military service when he attended film classes during his off days.
In an interview with Michael Berry, Chang said, “I was in charge of a theater in the army, and it was very popular….The movies shown were not screened in any
systematic way; sometimes reels would even be mixed and matched! Normally we are accustomed to seeing movies in a straightforward, linear fashion, but I realized that you could show ten minutes of one film, then jump to the middle of some other film, then move on to something else. After being exposed to so many movies during that era, I started playing with the idea of pursuing a career in film”(401). This initial experience in editing is surely what inspired of Chang’s later creative, non-linear editing in his work.
After being discharged from the army, Chang entered the Film Department of Chinese Culture University in Taipei, and began his formal film education. Chang
completed his studies at Chinese Culture University in 1987, and thereafter he worked under several famed directors. Though he got the opportunity to pursue further study abroad, he decided to take Hou Hsiao-hsien’s suggestion that young film directors should develop their style only after serving apprenticeships in the film industry.
Chang began as a director’s assistant for Yu Kanping’s People Between Two Chinas [Haixialiangan] (1988) and Yim Ho and Tsui Hark’s King of Chess [Qiwang] (1992).
These were followed by a stint as assistant director on Hou Hsiao hsien’s City of
Sadness [Beiqingchengshi] (1989), Yu Kanping’s Two Painters [Liangge youqijiang]
(1990) and Huang Yushan’s Peony Birds [Mudanniao] (1990).
Chang began to immerse himself in the art of other TNC directors (Hsieh 2002, 81) at this period, including Hou Hsiao-hsien. Working with Hou differed from Chang’s experiences working with others, and at this time he learned how to work with non-professional actors, and began indulged in Hou’s directorial and stylistic preferences, including Hou’s distinctive long takes. In 1989, Chang served as an assistant director on Hou’s The City of Sadness, a family saga which examines the 228 massacre in 1947’s Taiwan. Chang placed himself in Hou’s shoes in order to
understand the many challenges directors face (Hsieh 2002, 81), and he said that he was strongly influenced by Hou’s work ethic, and that this experience was a turning point in his career and greatly impacted his later style. To this day, critics say Chang’s work bears strong aesthetic similarities to Hou’s.
At the beginning of his career, some thought that Chang was Hou Hsiao-hsien’s successor as a proponent of realism in film and a spokesman for underprivileged
classes in Taiwan. Without question Chang’s pursuit of a realistic style can be seen as an outcome of his experience working with Hou and other TNC directors, and his career development firmly follows in their footsteps. Chang’s experiences with Hou and other Taiwan New Cinema filmmakers influenced his film techniques and production values, many of his personal thematic concerns, and his empathetic, compassionate portrayals of local poor communities and postindustrial family structure, with their associated criticism of Taiwanese society. Such filial, emotional, penetrating values have proven extremely popular with international audiences.
Chang’s experience working with Tsui Hark was very different from his
apprentice experience in Taiwan. This opened Chang’s eyes to the efficiency of Hong Kong studio production, which had been developed since the late 1960s. Working with Tsui inspired Chang, though we can seldom see Tsui’s influence in the way Chang synthesizes studio production values into his own innovative, independent productions.10 Nevertheless, working with Tsui also allowed him to receive training from directors outside the TNC group
After his six-year apprenticeship, Chang directed his first TV series in 1991, initiating his independent career. From 1991-1996 Chang directed TV plays and documentaries about the lives of teenagers in Taiwan, including What the Grass Says
to the Wind [Fenghancao de duihua] and Teenager? Teenager! [Qingshaonian
10 At the premiere of his most recent film, Soul of a Demon, Chang noted that the three people who influenced him most were Yu Kan-ping, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsui Hark. He said that he learned how to interact with others from Yu, that Hou’s aesthetics influenced him most, and that Tsui’s
resourceful Hong Kong studio production had deeply inspired him.
qingshaonian]. At this time, Chang acquired plenty of documentary techniques that he often employed, and in an interview with Hsieh Ren-chang in 2002, he indicated how this experience influenced his cinematic stylistics:
It is easy for the director to discover the “target” of shooting while making documentary films. But the difficulty lies in how to capture the picture you want. Making a documentary film is like conducting a battle. You have to leave your camera on all the time in order not to miss any important situation.… I am used to work with non-professional actors due to my documentary experience (Hsieh 43 [my translation]).11
In this second phase, Chang also began to make his own films. His first effort was 1993’s Gunshots in the Night [Anye qiangsheng]. With this debut feature, Chang declared himself a full-fledged “auteur” controlling the entire filmmaking process.
Interestingly, after Chang finished Gunshot in the Night, he quarreled with the film’s Hong Kong sponsor and producer Jacob Cheung on the editing of the print, and Chang demanded that the film be released as he had directed it. In the end, against Chang’s wishes, a commercial version of the film was released, and Chang refused to be identified as the director of the film (Michael Berry 403-406). We see here an example of the fiercely independent auteur at work, and in this respect Chang has made several important statements about how he asserts auteurist autonomy. Chang believed that “Taiwanese films win international prizes for it takes the
11 The original text in Chinese is: “ 因為拍紀錄片時，會很了解誰是主體，但困難在於能不能讓你 拍到；拍紀錄片可說隨時處於備戰狀態，電源隨時開著，一看到狀況就拍進去。…後來我就起用 非職業演員，這是從紀錄片的經驗衍生的。”
director-oriented pro, yet today’s mainstream in film industry worldwide is the producer-oriented pro. The director-oriented pro can create films irrelevant to the market and the director’s name represents the whole film’s style. This is the origin of
“auterism,” where the audience begins to identify a film with its director’s style (Li Hsieh and Wu, 2003, 86 [my translation]).12
Chang’s first critically acclaimed film was Ah Chung [Zhongzi] in 1996, which depicts a disfranchised working class teenager who practices the local Ba Jia Jiang folk ritual.13 This film is marked by lower working class sentiments, teenage
rebellion, and vulgar language, all shot in a plain documentary style. This film began to draw many critics’ attention to Chang’s fresh film language. Chang’s next film,
Darkness and Light [Heian zhiguang] in 1999, set in the Taiwan port city of Keelung,
is more sophisticated, and in this film Chang further developed his grassroots style.
This film won the Gold award in the Tokyo Grand Prix, and the Asian Film award at the Tokyo International Film Festival. It was also a big winner at the 1999’s Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan, winning Grand Jury, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing and the Audience Favorite awards. Though his style was not yet fully developed,
Darkness and Light contained many of the essential magical realistic elements that
would mark Chang’s mature style.
12 The text in Chinese is : “台灣電影會得獎, 是因為採取導演制的關係: 現今全世界電影都是製 片人的制度, 可以隨時換導演。導演制可以拍出與市場無關的, 導演的名字就是整個電影, 造就 了作者論。”
13 “Ba Jia Jiang” is a Taiwanese folk ritual for warding off bad luck. It is a practice of praying for a healthy and tranquil life from the divinity. At folk religious gatherings, practitioners first invite the gods to get into their bodies and then launch a parade declaring the gods’ messages.
If the first two phases of Chang’s career germinated his stylistics, the third phase, starting with his 2002 film, The Best of Times [Meili shiguang], demonstrates the full flower of his trademark style and magical realism in the themes like wretched gangsters, unhappy teenagers and irresponsible parents whose lives were eased somewhat by magical realism.14 Commenting on his own magical realism, Chang said that “what the film presents is definitely not reality, but the performance itself is real.” Therefore, “the boundary between surrealism and illusion doesn’t exist” (Li, Hsieh, and Wu, 2003, 88).15 It is possible that critics in Taiwan have been confused by incongruous or fantastic scenes (such as the appearance of the unicorn in The Best