‘Orphan of Zhao’ director failed to give us credit: Chinese screenwriters

NEW DELHI - Two famous female screenwriters of Chinese film industry are annoyed with a director for not giving them credit in his latest film.

Though his latest film, ‘Orphan of Zhao,’ is drawing plaudits nationwide, ‘Farewell My Concubine’ director Chen Kaige is also taking barbs from the screenwriters who say he failed to credit their co-authorship of the script.

“Since we wrote parts of the script, our names should have been included in the screenwriters list,” English.news.cn quoted Gao Xuan, as saying on her blog.

‘Orphan of Zhao,’ an adaptation of a Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368) play, is the story of a physician who sacrifices his own son to save the only child of the Zhao family after their massacre by a general, and helps the child to seek vengeance against when he grows up.

Xuan said she and Ren Baoru were invited by Kaige to write the script in 2008. They stopped after finishing the first half of the story in July 2009, because Chen changed the plot development.

At the premiere on Dec. 4, Xuan and Baoru found their names listed as “writers for earlier stage” in the credits, while Kaige was credited as the sole screenwriter.

“What an invention! We’ve never heard of such a thing as ‘writers for earlier stage’,” Xuan wrote.

“It’s merely a rude denial of our authorship,” Xuan added.

The producer, Chen Hong- Kaige’s wife, argues Xuan and Baoru should not be acknowledged as screenwriters, as they did not complete the script, and the crediting as “writers for earlier stage” was approved by lawyers. (ANI)