Summary
Ink, blood, and volcanic ash swirl through this 1922 curio like calligraphy on silk. Tse Chan, a porcelain-cold viceroy, condemns his wife to the executioner’s blade on the trembling suspicion of infidelity; the moment her pulse stops, the palace lanterns gutter, as though even light recoils. Guilt blooms like nightshade in his chest, so he exiles his infant son Li Chan to a land of iron bridges and Protestant hymns, then retires behind lacquered screens to carve out his own heart with memory. Years later, Li Chan returns, diploma in civil engineering tucked inside a Western-cut coat, and falls—hard—for Hyacinth, a basket-weaver’s daughter whose laughter smells of river reeds. Their idyll shatters when father-now-tyrant kidnaps the girl, stuffing her into a palanquin of black teak. Believing himself betrayed, Li Chan flees to the metropolis, where chalkboards and adoring students become his new religion; fate, however, writes in circles. The “niece” he is hired to tutor is Hyacinth, powdered and re-named, a night-blooming cereus trapped in the pot of merchant Ho Ling. Together they crawl through drainage ditches, scale basalt cliffs, and dive into the dragon-mouth of a live volcano—steam, sulfur, and forbidden desire braided into one long scream. Sentenced to Ling Chee, that exquisite slow death by the lift of the Vermilion Pencil (a brush dipped in cinnabar that signs your soul away), they are saved by the mountain’s own convulsion: lava spews, dynasties crumble, lovers sprint across glowing scree while the screen itself seems to blister.
Synopsis
Tse Chan, a Chinese viceroy, believing his wife to be unfaithful, sentences her to death. After learning of her innocence too late, he sends his son, Li Chan, to America and goes into seclusion. Li Chan returns to the fatherland as a successful engineer and falls in love with Hyacinth, daughter of a poor basket-weaver. She is kidnapped by the viceroy, and thinking she has deserted him, Li Chan goes to the city and becomes famous as a teacher. Engaged to give private lessons to the niece of Ho Ling, he soon learns that his pupil is none other than Hyacinth, and he plans an escape for her. They seek refuge in the caverns of "The Sleeping Dragon," an active volcano, but overcome by fumes, they are forced to surrender and are sentenced to the torture of Ling Chee by the lifting of the "Vermilion Pencil." During an eruption of the volcano, the lovers escape and flee from the city.
Review Excerpt
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The first time I saw The Vermilion Pencil I tasted copper, as though the film’s titular brush had slipped past the gate and dragged itself across my tongue. It is 1922, but the calendar feels decorative; what matters is the chromatic fever of the print—umber, jade, arterial crimson—projected at the perfect speed where faces smear into ghosts.
Director Edwin Warren Guyol, working from Homer Lea’s sinewy treatment, stages every scene like a scroll painting that refuses to stay static. Watch how ..."
