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Clarence Tsui

In with the new: this seemed the key takeaway from the Chinese films that appeared at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain this year.
Throughout the nine-day event, which ran from September 19 to 27, debate whirled around documentary-maker Qin Xiaoyu’s first fictional feature, Her Heart Beats in Its Cage. Its non-professional leading actress, Zhao Xiaohong, won a prize for her turn as a woman trying to reconcile with her son after serving a 10-year prison sentence.
Meanwhile, Zhang Zhongchen’s Nighttime Sounds – about a child’s gradual awakening of hidden secrets in her village – received rave reviews in the New Directors section.
Still, the Spanish festival also looked back at classic Chinese cinema by hosting the world premiere of a restored version of Ashima, the first full-colour, widescreen musical movie produced on the mainland after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Completed in 1964 and directed by actor-turned-director Liu Qiong, Ashima revolves around a young couple in a Yunnan village played by Yang Likun and Baosier, whose blooming romance is cut short by the interference of the scion of a powerful clan.
Adapted from a legendary poem of the Sani people in southwestern China, the film is nearly entirely devoid of spoken dialogue, with characters speaking to each other – and themselves – through composer Ge Yan’s Mandarin-language songs.
The bulk of the movie was shot on soundstages in Shanghai, where the cast sang and danced on lavishly constructed sets of sweeping pastures and flowing streams. These sequences were interwoven with scenes drawn from location shoots in Yunnan.
Liu also employed special effects to enhance the mythical nature of the narrative and heighten the suspense driving the second half of the story, when the two lovers try to flee from the traps set by their nemesis.

Liu’s visual innovations have been largely undermined over the years thanks to the prevalent circulation of a version cropped to fit the smaller screen size of pre-digital cinemas and cathode-ray television sets.
According to Zhu Jun, who oversaw the restoration of Ashima as the deputy general manager of Shanghai Film Technology Plant (SFTP), the project’s objective was to revert the film to its original aspect ratio.
Speaking to the Post at San Sebastian, Zhu said his team managed to find a relatively well-preserved widescreen internegative in the vault of SFTP, which was established in 1957 as a film processing factory.
“There were fractures, scratches and breaks on the print, with some parts of it stuck together,” he recalled.
His colleagues cleaned and conserved the material by hand before they collaborated with the Italian film restoration outfit L’Immagine Ritrovata on the 4K scanning and restoration of the material.

During the process, Zhu’s colleagues consulted past interviews with Xu Qi, the late cinematographer of the film, to ensure the restored version would retain the creative vision, colour palette and grainy texture of the original production.
Just as intriguing, however, was Ashima’s treacherous passage through official denunciation and political rehabilitation towards success at home and then abroad.
The film was finished just as the mainland was slowly sliding towards the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.
Despite boasting a story rooted in a struggle between its young heroes and their feudal overlords, Ashima was singled out for criticism by Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong’s wife, because of its “promotion of love reigning supreme” over all else.
After a few internal screenings organised specially for party leaders, the film was shelved. Rather than becoming a landmark for a national cinema in the making, the film was airbrushed from history and largely forgotten.

It would take more than a decade before Ashima was authorised for public viewing for the first time as part of an event commemorating the normalisation of Sino-US diplomatic relations on December 27, 1978.
By the time the film was finally released across the mainland on January 1, 1979, most of the cast and crew had already been rehabilitated and had rebooted their careers. Yang Likun was not among them, however.
Born in Yunnan, a then 16-year-old Yang was propelled to fame in 1959 with her role in the romance musical Five Golden Flowers. Her starring turn in Ashima was supposed to consolidate her standing as the biggest movie star in the People’s Republic.
Yang’s unwavering sway over mainland audiences was partly the reason why Jiang Qing – a former movie star herself – was particularly harsh against the actress, whom she disparagingly called a “woman of bourgeois beauty”.

Having already suffered a breakdown during the stalled release of Ashima, Yang was driven to insanity by the humiliation and altercations she was subjected to during the Cultural Revolution.
Nurtured back to her health by her husband, whom she met in Shanghai during the final years of the Cultural Revolution, she never returned to acting and died in 2000 without securing much attention from cinephiles and the public alike.
“We have a lot of different relationships with Chinese institutions, and we were offered the possibility of screening this film,” said Jose Luis Rebordinos, the director of the San Sebastian festival. “We would want the film to be presented in the classics section, but it was a bit too late.”
Rebordinos said Ashima was part of a “very strong” line-up of Chinese films at San Sebastian this year, and another restored Chinese film could make it to the festival next year.
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Why was Ashima, pioneering Chinese musical film, shelved for years before its release?

Yang Likun in a still from Ashima (1964), the first full-colour, widescreen musical movie produced in mainland China after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The film was shelved for years after it was singled out for criticism by Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong’s wife.

A still from Ashima (1964).

Zhu Jun (left), the creative producer of the restoration of Ashima, presents a framed poster of the film to San Sebastian Film Festival programmer Roberto Cueto before the film's screening on September 26.

Baosier in a still from Ashima (1964).

Zhu Jun (left) alongside project supervisor Yun Junjie before the screening of the film at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Yang Likun (left) in a still from Ashima (1964).

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The showing of a restored version of 1964’s Ashima at the 2025 San Sebastian International Film Festival highlights its troubled past


The showing of a restored version of 1964’s Ashima at the 2025 San Sebastian International Film Festival highlights its troubled past.


Chinese language cinema

Asian cinema

Cinema

Fame and celebrity

Why was Ashima, pioneering Chinese musical film, shelved for years before its release?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The showing of a restored version of 1964’s Ashima at the 2025 San Sebastian International Film Festival highlights its troubled past

The showing of a restored version of 1964’s Ashima at the 2025 San Sebastian International Film Festival highlights its troubled past