NZ on Screen: Chinese New Year

The Lantern festival in Albert Park, Auckland. Photo / Michael Craig

With Chinese New Year celebrations in full swing, NZ On Screen Content Director Irene Gardiner takes a look at how China and its people have been represented on New Zealand screens.

Chinese New Year celebrations for the year of the sheep have been attracting crowds up and down the country. In Auckland, the annual Lantern Festival has just begun, and it will run throughout this weekend.

New Zealand has had a significant Chinese population for many years now, so it is no surprise that our film and television has often touched on Chinese themes over the years.

The classic 1988 feature film Illustrious Energy focused on one of the more shameful parts of our history - how early Chinese settlers were treated here.

The feature-directing debut of renowned cinematographer Leon Narbey, the film told the story of Chan and his older mate Kim, who were prospecting for gold in 1890s Otago. The pair faced racism, isolation, extreme weather, and dodgy opium dealers.

You can see an excerpt from Illustrious Energy below:

A more recent Chinese immigrant themed feature film is Roseanne Liang's My Wedding and Other Secrets, made in 2011. The film looks at more modern day cultural concerns with a young woman hoping to conceal a cross-cultural romance from her conservative Chinese parents. Liang drew on her autobiographical video diary style documentary Banana in a Nutshell for the film, which was her feature debut.

You can view excerpts and making of material from My Wedding and Other Secrets here:

Expat Kiwi Rewi Alley became one of the best known foreigners in 20th century China and an advocate for the Communist revolution. When China was under siege from Japan in the late 1930s, Alley instigated an industrial co-op movement he termed "gung ho" (work together). Its success led to the phrase entering the global idiom. For this acclaimed 1979 documentary, a Geoff Steven-led crew travelled 15,000km in China, filming Alley as he gave his account of an engrossing, complex life story. Co-writer Geoff Chapple later wrote a biography of Alley.

Watch Gung Ho - Rewi Alley of China here:

As well as feature films and documentaries, our various magazine and lifestyle shows have all featured China and Chinese themes regularly over the years. Back in 2004, popular travel series Intrepid Journeys sent actress Katie Wolfe on a trip to China. She visited the Bladerunner-like cityscapes of Shanghai, the Forbidden City of Beijing, and headed up the Yangtze river, visiting ghostly towns and apartment blocks, drained of people by dam construction.

View Intrepid Journeys - China here:

And, last but not least, TVNZ's long-running Asia-focused magazine series Asia Downunder frequently featured Chinese New Zealanders, and regularly provided coverage of Chinese New Year festivities. This show, from 2009, featured that year's local celebrations, including Auckland's annual Lantern Festival.

Watch Asia Downunder - Chinese New Year here:

NZ On Screen's Chinese New Year collection has a more comprehensive selection of Chinese themed television and film.