MCLC: Norway gives "Pan si dong" to China

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Norway gives "Pan si dong" to China
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Source: SCMP (4/15/14):
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1482795/norway-gives-china-87-year-o
ld-monkey-king-film-thought-be-long-lost

Norway gives China 87-year-old Monkey King film thought to be long lost
By Agence France-Presse

Norway will hand to China a copy of “The Cave of the Silken Web”, a
classic Chinese film that had long been believed lost, the National
Library of Norway said Monday.

The delivery of the silent film from 1927 is expected to arrive in Beijing
on Tuesday.

Diplomatic relations between both countries have been tense since Chinese
dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded in 2010 the Nobel Peace Prize, decided by
the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

After deciding to go through its stock of around 9,000 old films in 2011,
the National Library of Norway found a nitrocellulose copy of “Pan si
dong” -- its original Chinese title. It was the first film from the Asian
country to be screened in the Scandinavian kingdom.

It seems to be the only existing copy.

The film, inspired by a classic Chinese novel by Wu Cheng’en called
Journey to the West, was restored before being sent to the China Film
Archive.

In the film, Tang Sanzang, a pilgrim monk entrusted by a Tang-dynasty
emperor to find some sacred Buddhist texts, ends up trapped in the Cave of
the Seven Spiders, who want to eat his flesh to become immortal. The monk
is later saved by his disciple Sun Wukong, or the Monkey King.

First screened in Oslo in 1929, the copy found in Norway features
subtitles in Chinese and Norwegian.

“The translator took quite a few liberties and added his own comments in
brackets when it suited him. This gives the film a comical twist,” said
Tina Anckarman, film archivist at the National Library of Norway.

“There are also sequences where the Chinese text is upside down or
inverted.”

In 1967, the legendary Hong Kong film studio Shaw Brothers made another
film of the same name, based on the same episode of Journey to the West.

Chinese authorities put on hold all high level bilateral contacts with
their Norwegian counterparts after the Scandinavian country awarded Liu
Xiaobo, considered a criminal by China, the Nobel Peace Prize.