Li Han-hsiang (Director)

Aka Li Hanxiang. Born: China 1926. Died: China, 1997.

Moved from the Hong Kong industry to work in Taiwan during the 1960s. Li cut ties with the Shaws and started up a new company in 1963. He entered a partnership with Union, the distributor of Shaw and Cathay films in Taiwan and founded Grand Pictures, whose Chinese name (Guolian) combined the first character of each partner: Cathay (Guotai) and Union (Lianban).

One of the films he made for the Shaw Brothers studio was The Magnificent Concubine (1962), a 'remake' or retelling of the same Chinese Tang dynasty story as Kenji Mizoguchi's 1955 colour film Yokihi (which had been co-produced by Shaws but had been a commercial failure).

Li’s ideal was to set up a studio with management made up of practicing filmmakers whose decision-making was collaborative rather than dictatorial. Collaborative meant that Grand, a “director-as-producer” company, allowed directors to have more say in production. It also meant that Li himself would direct fewer films (he only made six and a quarter films), to give new directors more opportunities.

In 1965 Li lost his two major backers. Cathay’s owner Lu Yuntao and Taiwan Studio’s director Long Fang were both killed in a mysterious air crash. By 1966, Li had woefully overspent in the new company’s first years, and Union refused to extend more credit. By 1967, Grand was in serious financial difficulties and broke off from Cathay and Union. Li quickly sought outside funding to maintain production and formed an alliance with another distribution company. Without Union’s powerful distribution network, and lacking the mighty financial backup from Cathay, Li was not able to sustain his quality production. By 1970, Grand Pictures ceased operations. It had made a total of just twenty-two films.