Eileen Chang
Chinese-American writerWikipedia
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Search complete. 10 mentions across 3 episodes found for "Eileen Chang".
Oct 6, 2026
speaker_0HOST
Okay.
speaker_1HOST
This film is directed by Ang Lee, and it's adapted from a deeply cynical, brilliant novella by the legendary Shanghainese writer Eileen Chang.
speaker_0HOST
Now, Eileen Chang is known for her unsentimental, piercing observations of human nature, right?
speaker_1HOST
Very much so.
6 MINS LATER
speaker_1HOST
It looks like agonizing, quiet, desperate endurance against the very state that is supposedly being built
speaker_0HOST
Yes
speaker_1HOST
If we connect this to the bigger picture, you've just hit on the exact subversive genius of writers like Yu Hua and directors like Zhang Yimou
speaker_0HOST
Okay, unpack that
Na ZhongGUEST
Um, well, I'm gonna give a really cliche answer.
Na ZhongGUEST
My favorite Chinese book is definitely any book by Eileen Chang.
Na ZhongGUEST
I'm a diehard fan of hers.
Na ZhongGUEST
I would read her essay collection, her short story collection, her novel.
Na ZhongGUEST
But if I have to recommend one title from Eileen Chang, I would say it's The Rice Sprout Song, Yang Ge, which is a novel published in 1955.
Na ZhongGUEST
It's Eileen Chang's first attempt at writing fiction in English, although later she also translated into Chinese herself, and it's the Chinese version that I'm recommending because her Chinese prose is...
Na ZhongGUEST
I have to say, it's much, so much better.
Na ZhongGUEST
It's so much richer and more central than English.
Vincent M. GaineHOST
Many of these movements would prove rich material for writers and directors in later decades who created both meticulous historical dramas and gripping espionage thrillers.
Vincent M. GaineHOST
In 2007, Oscar-winning director Ang Lee adapted Eileen Chang's novella Lost Caution, into a slow-burn psychological drama of duality, duplicity and desire.
Vincent M. GaineHOST
In 2016, director Sean Ellis dramatised the events around the 1942 assassination of senior Nazi Reinhard Heydrich in Anthropoid, a film that presents desperation, non-heroics and dubious nobility.
Vincent M. GaineHOST
Through their presentation of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, these films present espionage as an unglamorous and extremely dangerous undertaking.
13 MINS LATER
Vincent M. GaineHOST
The first film we are focusing on is, as already indicated, Lust Caution from 2007.
Vincent M. GaineHOST
This is a film directed by Ang Lee.
Vincent M. GaineHOST
with screenplay by James Seamus and Hui Ling Wang, based on a story by Eileen Chang.
Vincent M. GaineHOST
It stars Tony Leung Choe, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Lee Hong Wang and Chung Hwa Tu.