Operatic Ghosts on Screen: The Case of A Test of Love (1958)

Abstract

From 1953, four years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, until the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, at least 115 opera films were released—an extraordinarily high number by any measure.1 Of these, almost all were reworkings of traditional operas and stories—many of which were based on popular legends, myths, or folktales—and included supernatural content. Married to a Heavenly Immortal (Tian Xian Pei, 1955), about a peasant who marries a goddess, and Chasing the Fish Spirit (Zhui yu, 1959), about a fish spirit who falls in love with a handsome scholar, are perfect examples of this sort of opera film.2 Ghosts, however, were another matter, because they were more directly related to religious beliefs about the afterlife. The Party's cultural policy during this period was open to folklore as an expression of the common people and as a way to appeal to their sensibilities, but content involving ghosts was generally viewed as backward superstition and hence much more dangerous and problematic than other aspects of the supernatural.3

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