Sorrows of the Forbidden City

Zhu died in 1967, the year in which his Sorrows of the Forbidden City – also known as Inside Story of the Qing Court – received the longest “film review” in memory. In 1954, Mao Zedong had attacked it as anti-progressive and in 1967 others used that critique to condemn the film and other cultural “poisonous weeds” during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. “At no time since it was shown all over the country”, wrote Mao in 1954, “has the film Inside Story of the Qing Court – described as patriotic though in fact a film of national betrayal – yet been criticised and repudiated.” Early in 1967, the Party organ, Hongqi (“Red Flag”), vilified the film in an essay subsequently splashed over a staggering 30 pages in Chinese Literature. The film focused on a conflict between Empress Dowager Cixi, her son Guangxi (the nominal emperor) and his wife, Zhenfei. Its “attitude” to the Yi Ho Tuan (Boxer) movement was the nub of the controversy. Some critics regard this work as one of the finest post-war HK releases. —eyestrane.com