Press Release from Music Box:
In collaboration with EMI Music Publishing France, Music Box Records proudly presents the newly remastered and expanded edition of Georges Delerue's score to the 1965 classic adventure film Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine (Chinese Adventures in China / Up to His Ears), directed by Philipe de Broca (King of Hearts, Chouans!) and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Ursula Andress and Jean Rochefort.
Following the huge success of That Man from Rio (1964), the film’s producer Alexandre Mnouchkine offered Philippe de Broca to direct a sequel. After acquiring the adaptation rights for Jules Verne’s novel Tribulations of a Chinaman in China (1879), Mnouchkine convinced de Broca to adapt it as an indirect sequel to Adrien Dufourquet’s adventures. George Delerue wrote a rich adventure score for the film with a dynamic and brassy main theme that uses the pentatonic mode characteristic of Chinese music and gives a taste of Asia. Built on a waltz rhythm, the theme also suggests Europe with its typical Western musical rhythm. The composer also wrote numerous pieces that create tension, with its double bass chords, shrill brass instruments and jittery strings. This dense score also offers one of the gems of musical romanticism written by the composer for cinema: Alexandrine’s theme. This delicate and bewitching melody played on the flute and the harp illuminates the passionate but complicated love story between the billionaire and the ethnologist.
This present edition has been fully remastered from complete scoring session elements and features 20 minutes of previously unreleased music. The package includes a 12-page booklet with liner notes by Sylvain Pfeffer, discussing the film and the score. The CD release is limited to 1000 units.
