The
storied Central Motion Pictures Corporation (CMPM) is like both the Cinecitta
and Shaw Brothers of Taiwan. Legendary auteurs like Hou Hsaio-hsien, Ang Lee,
Edward Yang, and Tsai Ming-liang all started their careers there. They also produced
plenty of crowd-pleasers, such as Eight
Hundred Heroes and Cloud of Romance.
Over the decades, Hu Ding-yi worked on all sorts of films there, but he might
be the last of his breed. The sound effects master’s career becomes a vehicle
for taking stock of the history of Taiwanese cinema in Wan-jo Wang’s A Foley Artist (trailer here), which screens
during the 2017 Asian American International Film Festival.
When
Hu started with the CMPC, its apprenticeship program was almost as regimented as
the military, but it offered the job security of IBM in its heyday. He rose
through the ranks in the sound department, at a time when appreciation was
growing for sound effects. Not surprisingly, many sound editors, audio
engineers, composers, and dubbing specialists pay their respects to Master Hu.
Probably the biggest name present is the eternally glamorous Sylvia Chang, who
has surprisingly nice things to say about dubbing artists.
In
fact, some of the most interesting sequences in Foley Artist, involve the craft of voice-dubbing, which was
originally performed in Taiwan by recognizable radio personalities. Foley
specialists like Hu also became quite resourceful scouring dumps and junkyards
for cast-off items that could make desired sounds. Fittingly, sound
editor-mixer Chen Chia-wei nicely emphasizes and isolates the sound effects Hu
created, giving the audience a richly varied and fully audible sample of his
talents. Although still professionally active, the industry has largely passed
Hu by, which gives the film a tone of nostalgic melancholy.
