DIRECTOR: Leon Narbey
PRODUCERS: Don Reynolds, Chris Hampson
SCREENPLAY: Martin Edmond, Leon Narbey
PHOTOGRAPHY: Alan Locke
EDITOR: David Coulson
PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Janelle Aston
COSTUME DESIGNER: Trixie Woodill
MUSIC: Jan Preston
WITH: Shaun Bao (Chan), Harry Ip (Kim), Peter Chin (Wong), Geeling Ng (Li), Desmond Kelly (surveyor), Heather Bolton (Mrs Wong), Peter Hayden (Reverend Don), David Telford (Stan Pasco)

AWARDS: East West Center Award, Hawaii International Film Festival 1988. Bronze Charybdis, Taormina International Film Festival 1988, Best Director, Best Cinematography, NZ Film & TV Awards 1988

REVIEW

“One of those magical, dream-like films that quietly and slowly draws you into another place and holds you there, mesmerised" – Helen Martin, NZ Listener

"Best known, as a cinematographer, for the striking beauty of such diverse visions of New Zealand life as Whale Rider, Desperate Remedies and The Price of Milk, Leon Narbey has recently supervised this superb digital restoration of the highly regarded but little seen feature he directed in 1987.

The film is set in 1895, the year the New Zealand government imposed a £100 poll tax on any Chinese person entering the country. In this hostile climate a young Chinese man and his aged father-in-law are working abandoned gold claims in a Central Otago river gorge – and dreaming of finding the jackpot that would enable them to return with honour to their families in China.

A hymn to dry grass, clear light and the rocky Central Otago terrain (much of it drowned by the Clyde Dam in 1993), Illustrious Energy distils the embattled life force in men who never expected to end their days under southern skies, let alone put down roots and invigorate their new country."

— Bill Gosden, NZIFF 2011

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