About
Illustrious Energy sees Chan and his older mate Kim prospecting for gold in 1890s Otago. Marooned until they can pay off their debts and return to China; they’ve been fruitlessly working their claim for 12 and 27 years respectively. Chan faces racism, isolation, extreme weather, threatening surveyors, opium dens and a circus romance. The renowned feature-directing debut of cinematographer Leon Narbey provides a poetic evocation of the Chinese settler experience; especially vivid are Central’s natural details — desolate schist and tussock lands, rasping crickets.
Key Cast & Crew
Related images
Harry Ip (right) and Shaun Bao in a cave-hut location in Conroy's Gully.
Kindly supplied by the Dominion Post.
Village of Chinese goldminers' huts on the banks of the Clutha River.
Kindly supplied by the Dominion Post.
Chan (Shaun Bao) and Kim (Harry Ip) confront a colonial surveyor (Desmond Kelly) in Illustrious Energy.
Kindly supplied by the Dominion Post.
Chinese actor Shaun Bao takes the role of Chan in Illustrious Energy.
Kindly supplied by the Dominon Post.
