Illustrious Energy Narrative Film

A rare screen work dramatising the lives of Chinese immigrants in 19th-century Aotearoa, as well as the impact of ‘Yellow Peril’ and the government’s racist poll tax on their livelihoods between 1881–1941, Illustrious Energy was directed by prolific cinematographer Leon Narbey. The script was co-written by Martin Edmond, who instigated the project after reading Peter Butler’s Opium and Gold, a history of Chinese goldminers in Aotearoa, first published in 1977.

The film’s title was inspired by a section in Butler’s book on a real-life Chinese poet known as Illustrious Envoy, who was committed to Dunedin’s notorious Seacliff Asylum during the late 1800s gold rush. Further research was taken from Roll of Chinese, the notebook of missionary Alexander Don, who documented Chinese living and working in Central Otago and Southland between 1883–1913.

Illustrious Energy, set around 1895, about the same time the poll tax imposed on Chinese immigrants was raised to £100 (from £10 originally in 1881), centres on Chan (Shaun Bao, aka Bao Xun) and his father-in-law Kim (Harry Ip), both of whom work tirelessly to prospect abandoned mining sites in the hope they’ll be able to raise enough money to return to their families in China. The film faithfully depicts the hard labour and painstaking process of mining along the beautiful yet unforgiving Central Otago gold trails, and, when the pair eventually strike gold, their experience of anti-Chinese prejudice within the township where Chan must visit to clear their debts.

Both native and local Chinese actors were cast in the main roles. Bao and Ip were established actors in the Chinese and Hong Kong film industries respectively. In supporting roles, former Dunedin mayor Peter Chin plays Wong, an orchard farmer whose settler life includes marriage to an Irish woman; and Geeling Ng, now a veteran of film, television and theatre in Aotearoa, plays Li, a circus performer who has a brief love affair with Chan. Future NZ Listener film critic Helene Wong, who worked in script development for the New Zealand Film Commission in the 1980s, consulted on the screenplay and the cast.

Due to the collapse of production company Mirage in 1988, ownership of Illustrious Energy changed hands multiple times after its initial film festival and theatrical run, and was difficult to see — at least in the way it was intended — until a restoration by Park Road Post was completed for retrospective screenings at the New Zealand International Film Festival in 2011.

NZ On Screen entry for Illustrious Energy

Watch Illustrious Energy online at NZ Film On Demand