Healthy Realism

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Healthy Realism (also known as wholesome Realism) was a cinematic movement that flourished in postwar Taiwan during the 1960s and 1970s, established by the state-sanctioned Central Motion Picture Corporation (CMPC). The movement aimed to promote the ruling Nationalist Party's (KMT) ideology of social stability and legitimacy through cinema. Inspired by Italian neorealism, Gong Hong, who assumed the executive post of CMPC in 1963, sought to produce films that portrayed the lives of ordinary people in a wholesome realist style. These films depicted the country’s rural life and natural beauty, reflecting a realistic and optimistic view of Taiwanese society and culture.

History

Healthy Realism emerged during a complex historical period in Taiwan, with two key contexts influencing its development. The first context was the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) government’s efforts to enhance its legitimacy by promoting a positive image of Taiwan and advancing nationalist ideology and its policies. This was especially important during the period of martial law in Taiwan, when the KMT sought to suppress dissent and maintain control over the population. Healthy Realism films portrayed Taiwan as a modern, progressive, and prosperous society, while also emphasizing the importance of traditional values and Confucian ethics. Secondly, in the industrial context, Healthy Realism developed a Mandarin-language film industry in Taiwan as a contender in the export market, which had been dominated by Hong Kong and Hollywood. The emergence of the Hong Kong industry as a major player in the region also played a significant role in shaping the development of Healthy Realism. This Healthy Realism film movement managed to carve out a unique space in the industry with its focus on genre films and commercial success. To achieve this, Healthy Realism focused on creating a film style, narrative, and star system with strong storytelling and compelling characters.

In 1963, Gong Hong assumed the position of general manager at CMPC and is widely recognized for promoting the principles of healthy realism as part of the nationalist government’s endorsed agenda. While Gong claimed that the healthy realism movement was inspired by Italian neorealism, his focus was more on showcasing the brighter side of society than on providing a realistic portrayal of Taiwanese society and its people. Gong began recruiting new and emerging directors and screenwriters to develop a series of healthy realism films. He was impressed by Lee Hsing’s realistic style and human emotions in Street Scenes (1962) and subsequently invited Lee and Li Jia to co-direct The Oyster Girl (1964) after watching a short documentary about oyster farming in Lukang, Taiwan. The film was a success in both domestic and international box offices, receiving acclaim for its portrayal of Taiwan’s unique rural scenery of the oyster field. Gong continued to collaborate with Lee Hsing in their next film, Beautiful Duckling (1965), which was also well-received by audiences and critics alike. Both films were pivotal in establishing the era of Healthy Realism Films.

Bai Jingrui was another significant filmmaker invited by Gong Hong to join the Healthy Realism movement after he graduated from the Italian Film Experimental Center. Despite feeling that the movement was far from what he had trained and aspired to in film school in Italy, he accepted the invitation and returned to Taiwan. Initially, he participated in the production of Healthy Realism films, collaborating with Lee Hsing on the post-production editing of The Oyster Girl and the screenplay for Beautiful Duckling. In 1965 he planned to film The Silent Wife and The Graceful Cousin, and in 1966, he planned the filming of My Name is Lan. Bai pursued his ambition of making a neorealist-style film with Lonely Seventeen in 1967 but quickly realized that he was not allowed to make films that criticized society or the country. As a result, he made a series of urban comedies that were both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. Home Sweet Home (1970) represents the pinnacle of the Healthy Realism movement, mirroring the Nationalist government’s emphasis on promoting social stability and traditional values in the face of Taiwan’s rapid modernization. These films are distinguished by their realistic style, which managed to expand the genre within the constraints of state supervision and cultural censorship prevalent in Taiwan during that era.

Characteristics

Despite claims that Healthy Realism drew inspiration from Italian neorealism, CMPC’s approach fell short of exposing the dark side of society. Gong Hong clarified that his aim was to produce films that portrayed a wholesome image of society and its people, celebrating truth, goodness, and beauty, rather than revealing hardship, poverty, and struggles. The Healthy Realism films also highlighted the achievements of rural economic development and played an important role in imagining a stable and promising future for Taiwan.

Lee Hsing is considered the most prominent filmmaker associated with CMPC’s Healthy Realism movement. He began his career as a scriptwriter for CMPC, where he played a pivotal role in promoting the Healthy Realism Movement. The two representative films of his, The Oyster Girl (co-directed with Lee Chia, 1964) and Beautiful Duckling (1965), exemplify the essence of the Healthy Realism Movement by featuring the natural scenery of Taiwan and presenting a candid depiction of rural life. The grand scene design of The Oyster Girl showcases the spectacle of oyster harvesting through the cinematographer Hua Huiying’s excellent color photography, which won the Best Film award at the 1965 Asian Film Festival in Taipei. The success of The Oyster Girl paved the way for the Healthy Realism genre, and Beautiful Duckling established this genre’s production line.

To capture the theme of rural or working-class life, Healthy Realism films use both outdoor and indoor settings. Sometimes, the film props are intentionally aged to create more realistic scenes. According to Taiwanese film scholar Liao Jinfeng, the “realism” of these films rests on several key factors as follows:

1. Its "realism" is presented through the transformation or variation of the external world in film.
2. The transformed or varied external world has significant differences from the reality that it intends to present.
3. The rural or working-class life experiences it focuses on describing also have a substantial gap from the real-life experiences of its subjects.
4. Its "realism" is an idealized form of realism, and thus, the world it presents is an idealized world.

In addition, the main characters in “healthy realism” films are mostly famous actors. Tang Pao-yun, in particular, became an iconic figure of the genre and contributed significantly to its success. Tang’s rise to stardom began with her lead role in the film Beautiful Duckling, and this earned her the nickname of “the Duckling Princess” and cemented her celebrity status. In Bai Jingrui’s Lonely Seventeen, Tang played a high school girl who, under tremendous academic pressure and family issues, lacks communication and emotional support and grapples with the complexities of love and reality, leading to various problems.

Receptions, Reviews, and Criticisms

Healthy realism films have been criticized by film critics and scholars for being nothing more than political propaganda, serving the nationalist government’s agenda. According to Lu Fei-yi, these films rely on the unreliable sense of human morality to address social problems and assume that old morals and ethics can sustain a new social order. However, in today’s rapidly changing society, where families and employment, materialism and morality, are constantly in conflict, such confidence appears naive and lacks persuasiveness. Cinematographers Hua Hui-ying and Lai Cheng-ying, who respectively worked on The Oyster Girl and Beautiful Duckling, have expressed doubts about the “healthy realism” approach. Hua believes that in these films, both sound and photography are deliberately arranged, and Lai points out that the use of Mandarin for characters who should be speaking Taiwanese or Japanese makes it difficult to meet the requirement of realism.

Overall, these criticisms suggest that “healthy realism” may not be an effective approach to representing the complexities of Taiwanese society and that filmmakers should seek alternative methods to address social issues and depict reality. While some critics have argued that this approach was overly idealistic and did not accurately reflect the complexities of Taiwanese society, the films were successful both domestically and internationally, and helped to establish Mandarin-language cinema as a significant cultural force.

References

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