How Mabel Cheung’s 1997 historical epic The Soong Sisters portrayed modern Chinese history
The Hong Kong director’s story of three Chinese sisters who all married influential figures covered various politically sensitive subjects
Hong Kong filmmakers have rarely focused on stories about modern history – historical films are expensive and the themes have always been considered too politically sensitive to address, even in colonial times.
The 1997 epic depicted the lives of three politically influential Chinese sisters: Soong Mei-ling, who married Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist Kuomintang political party from 1926 to 1975; Soong Ching-ling, who married Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Kuomintang; and Soong Ai-ling, who married the wealthy HH Kung, China’s minister for the interior and finance in the 1930s.
The Soongs were not stay-at-home wives; they were political powerhouses in their own right, and as the film progresses, the politics of pre-liberation China come more to the fore. But Cheung’s focus is squarely on the often combative triangular relationship of the three sisters.