Retro Tales

The three-day retrospective,organised by the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Centre,opened with Crouching Tiger,Hidden Dragon,that won four Oscars. “The idea was to rely on our tradition and merge it with technology of the West. This enabled us to reach the global platform. But we had no idea that it would become such a hit,” says Hsu. Among the other films that were screened were Fine Line,about the relationship between an Italian-American and a Chinese student and Eat Drink Man Woman,about a chef . The 1991 Chinese film,Pushing Hands,about a Chinese Tai-Chi master,will be screened this evening,followed by The Wedding Banquet .

Hsu recounts sundry details like how “the dining table shown in Pushing Hands was hauled in from Lee’s New York apartment” and how “Lee’s youngest son performed a cameo and the video camera used for shooting the film was borrowed”. “This movie was like a test so he wanted to impress me. He went out of his way and managed on a meagre budget,” says Hsu.

The success of Pushing Hands saw Lee and Hsu collaborating two years later on The Wedding Banquet ,Lee’s first poignant tribute to the gay community. “We tweaked Lee’s original script to make it not only commercially viable but also respectful to the gay community,” explains Hsu,adding that this festival is also symbolic. Twenty-five years ago,he had taken video tapes of Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy from India to Taiwan for screening.