Yang Chia-yun (Karen Yang), born March 1947[1] and originally from Qingdao, Shandong Province, is one of the second generation directors in Taiwan. She is also regarded as a "pioneer female film director of commercial Taiwanese film during the 1970s and 1980s".[2] In 1998, Yang Chia-yun directed the documentary A Secret Buries For 50 Years-- A Story of Taiwanese "Comfort Women", which won the 35th Golden Horse Awards for "Best documentary".[3] "The fate and resistance of women are mostly the focus of Chia-yun Yang's movies",[3] among which The Unsinkable Miss Calabash and A Secret Buried For 50 Years-- A Story of Taiwanese "Comfort Women" are the ones that she is personally most satisfied with.[4]

Yang Chia-yun
Traditional Chinese楊家雲
Simplified Chinese杨家云
Transcriptions

Biography

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Early years

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Yang Chia-yun's interest in and preference for movies had been cultivated since she was a child. At that time, her elder brother often liked to make use of existing simple props, such as curtains, table lamps, homemade paper puppets and so forth, to create a "family shadow play". Even if the props were simple and the techniques were not mature enough, this game was quite interesting for Yang Chia-yun at a young age.[5] After graduating from high school, Yang Chia-yun went to the National Taiwan Art Academy (now the Taiwan Art University) to study in the department of movie and TV program. During that time, she experienced the work of a continuity clerk for the first time in the summer internship. Later, she was assigned by the Central Motion Picture Corporation (now the Central Pictures Corporation) to work as an intern in director Hsing Lee's movie Jade Goddess, during which time she was promoted by Yung-Tze Li, the continuity clerk of the movie, and became a formal continuity girl.[6]
In the first nine years of Yang Chia-yun's career, she once served as a continuity clerk, an assistant director and a deputy director and acquired technical skills such as cutting, dubbing and so forth. She also followed and cooperated with senior directors Hsing Lee, Ching-Jui Pai and Yao-Chi Chen in the early period. Therefore, she had accumulated rich experience in practice.[6] In the 1970s, Yang Chia-yun also worked as a writer and co-wrote the scripts of the movies such as The Three Tales, A Saturday Date, The Beauty with Two Faces and others.[2]

After becoming a movie director

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In 1978, after entering the movie industry for nine years, Yang became a director officially and directed her first film, an affectionate literary film Morning Mist,[5] with Brigitte Lin and Chin Han playing the lead roles. Later, Yang and the female writer Hsuan Hsiao-fa together set up Sunshine Film Company and their first movie was a comedy, The Unsinkable Miss Calabash in 1981. In fact, they originally planned to produce another movie as the first one of the company. However, the comedy movies were popular at that time, so they changed their plan.[7] Encouraged by the news agency of the executive council, The Unsinkable Miss Calabash was sent to show in the Edinburgh International Film Festival.[6] This movie also got three nominations in the 18th Golden Horse Awards, best actress and best film original music, and Wang Lai, supporting actress of the movie, won the golden horse award of the best supporting actress.[8] Yang Chia-yun also tried to direct the works of other subjects, such as a thriller Who Dare Challenge Me in 1981 and a horror movie Exposed to Danger in 1982. In 1998, Yang Chia-yun directed the documentary A Secret Buries For 50 Years-- A Story of Taiwanese "Comfort Women", which was in the shortlist of Japanese Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, and won the 35th golden horse award for "Best documentary".[3] After directing A Secret Buried For 50 Years-- A Story of Taiwanese "Comfort Women", "Yang Chia-yun stopped directing drama movies and made only advertisements, social education films and public welfare films".[4]

Other works

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In addition to making films, Yang Chia-yun also participated in the direct of television series for China Television Company, Ltd. (CTV), and Chinese Television Service (CTS, now the Chinese Television System Enterprise), such as Mo Ran Hui Shou (in 1984), Mo Gui Shu (in 1985), Sunny Rain (in 1990), Jin Se Shi Guang (in 1991), Jin Qian Shu.[4] Moreover, she also participated in making a TV program: Yin fa shou nian : Sun Yue he ta de lao peng you men. "The same team worked for A Secret Buries For 50 Years-- A Story of Taiwanese "Comfort Women" parptcipated in making this program, including director Yang Chia-yun, producer Nianci Wang, photography Ruiyuan Shen, and WorldCat Identities".[9] What's more, Yang Chia-yun worked for Hsing Lee's stage play Xia Xue.

Filmography

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Movies

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Title Year Genres Starring
Morning Mist 1978 Romance Brigitte Lin Ching Hsia, Han Chin
Love Comes from the Sea 1980 Drama Kenny Bee, Tsai-Ling Ying
The Unsinkable Miss Calabash 1981 Comedy/Romance Tsai-Ling Ying, Sibelle Hu
Who Dare Challenge Me 1981 Drama Hui-Shan Yang, Hao-Jen Chiang
The Lady Avenger 1981 Action/Crime/Drama Hsiao-Fen Lu, Shou-Ping Tsui
Exposed to Danger 1982 Crime/Horror Hsiao-Fen Lu, Wing-Lun Tam
The Wayward Angels 1982 Drama Fu-Mei Chang, Ping Chang
The Crazy Youth 1982 Drama Hsiao-Fen Lu, Kai-Li Chu (Niu Tien)
Women Warriors of Kingmen 1983 Adventure Hsiao-Fen Lu, Hsiu-Shen Liang
A Secret Buries For 50 Years—A Story of Taiwanese "Comfort Women" 1998 Documentary A-Tao Huang, Man-Mei Lu

Television series[4]

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Title Year TV Station Starring
Mo Ran Hui Shou 1984 China Television Company, Ltd Yi-Chan Lu, Lily Li, Pi-Ling Lo, Ailun Chiang
Mo Gui Shu 1985 Chinese Television Service Stephen Tung, Ruo-yu Liu
Sunny Rain 1990 China Television Company, Ltd Yi-Chen Lin, Morni Chang
Jin Se Shi Guang 1991 China Television Company, Ltd Han Yu, Yu-Lan Chin
Jin Qian Shu Unknown Unknown Unknown

Scripts

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Title Year Genre Director Starring
The Three Tales 1974 Drama Hsing Lee, Chia Li, Ching-Jui Pai Ping-Yu Chang, Ya-Hui Huang, Chun Hsiung Ko
A Saturday Date 1976 Comedy/Romance Yung-Tze Li Charlie Chin, Feng Hsu, Kai-Li Chu (Niu Tien), Wen-Ching Liu
The Beauty with Two Faces 1976 Romance Yung-Tze Li Alan Tang, Brigitte Lin, Wei Chang
Love, Diploma & Jeans 1976 Romance Wei-Bin Liu Feng-Jiao Lin, Wen-Ching Liu, Kai-Li Chu (Niu Tien)
First Kiss First Good-bye 1978 Romance Yao-Chi Chen Wen-Ching Liu, Yin-Chen Chang, Ya-Lei Kuei

Others

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Title Year Genre
Yin fa shou nian : Sun Yue he ta de lao peng you men 2007 TV program
Xia Xue 2010 Stage Play

References

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  1. ^ "Archived copy". www.ctfa.org.tw. Archived from the original on 2019-01-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. ^ a b "Chia-Yun Yang". IMDb. Retrieved March 12, 2018.
  3. ^ a b c 魏时煜 (2014). 東西方電影 (in Chinese) (增訂版 ed.). City University of Hong Kong Press. p. 459. ISBN 9789629372651.
  4. ^ a b c d 刘亚玉. 台湾女导演研究1957–2000 (Ph.D. thesis). Retrieved March 11, 2018.
  5. ^ a b 呂麗秋 (1978). "導演椅,真難坐!—訪臺灣女導演楊家雲聽"唉"聲!". 銀色世界 (102): 52–53.
  6. ^ a b c "楊家雲 Yang Chia-Yun" (in Chinese). Retrieved March 13, 2018.
  7. ^ 玄小佛 (1981). "我想把楊家雲勒死". 銀色世界 (134): 30.
  8. ^ "小葫芦" (in Chinese). Retrieved March 13, 2018.
  9. ^ "銀髮熟年-孫越和他的老朋友們". Retrieved March 11, 2018.
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