"Fragrant Princess"
The Chinese film-play "Fragrant Princess," which has its world pre-micro this afternoon at the Metropol Theatre, possesses an interest for foreign patrons that is not present in the average Chinese historical dram: it deals with a period so recent that it can almost be described as modern times, and it permits one to realize how vast has been China's progress in the past 180 years.
Hsiang Fei, the Fragrant Princess, whose unhappy love-story it tells, is not only a historical character whose tragic fate is fully authenticated but her very real beauty has been preserved for all time by an Italian artist whose portrait of her is still to be seen in Peiping places.
Emperor Chien Lung's conquest of Zurgaria in order to secure her for his harem also accords with the facts ior though the 60 years of his reign were among the most prosperous and peaceful periods in China's long annals, the Emperor himself was frequently: in "hot water" for his love affairs with women whom the dour Oid Empress Dowager, his mother, considered outside the pale. With the noire range of/Manchu womanhood at his disposal, why should it be ne-assary for the Son of Heaven to run the risk of producing an heir to the throne of alien blood?
In addition to Hsiang Fei and nien Lung, many other characters in "Fragrant Princess' eve taken straight from the pages of Chinese history. These include Hodja Khan, the princess's husband, Gen. Chao Hui, the conqueror of Zungaria, the eunuch Ho Shen, who survived his master but was slain by his successor, the Dowager-Empress Niuhulu, and the rascally Badakhan. Lain Erh, who will probably be the hit of the picture, is alas a modern creation; the four maidservants who accompanied Hsiang Fei into captivity were all beaten to death when their mistress was strangled.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.