Comments on All 39 Cathay / MP&GI Films Released on Panorama VCD and DVD

January 15, 2011

THE FILMS

oo+---- indicates the chronological order of films available on disc

oo|

oo|ooo+---- indicates the chronological order of a film's theatrical release

oo|ooo|

oo|ooo|oooooooooooooooo+---- indicates a film's actual date of theatrical release

oo|ooo|oooooooooooooooo|

(01) 017 Mambo Girl 03/06/57 [Grace Chang]

(02) 025 My Kingdom for a Husband (aka Romance of Jade Hall, The) 09/12/57

(03) 028 Our Sister Hedy 11/14/57 [Jeanette Lin Cui and Julie Yeh Feng]

(04) 030 Tender Age, The (aka Splendour of Youth) 12/11/57

(05) 044 Spring Song 02/14/59 [Grace Chang and Jeanette Lin Cui]

(06) 049 Her Tender Heart 05/21/59 [Lucilla You Min]

(07) 050 Air Hostess 06/04/59 [Grace Chang, Julie Yeh Feng and Roy Chiao]

(08) 052 Our Dream Car 07/09/59 [Grace Chang]

(09) 055 For Better, For Worse 08/20/59 [Helen Li Mei]

(10) 063 Cinderella and Her Little Angels 12/31/59 [Linda Lin Dai]

(11) 066 June Bride 01/27/60 [Grace Chang and Roy Chiao]

(12) 068 Sister Long Legs 02/06/1960 [Jeanette Lin Cui, Julie Yeh Feng, and Roy Chiao]

(13) 073 Forever Yours 04/07/60 [Grace Chang]

(14) 074 Devotion 04/21/60 [Kitty Ting Hao, Ou-Yang Sha-Fei, and Zhang Yang]

(15) 077 Happily Ever After 06/16/60 [Lucilla You Min and Roy Chiao]

(16) 078 Bedside Story, The 06/23/60 [Helen Li Mei]

(17) 084 Dreams Come True 08/27/60 [Kitty Ting Hao]

(18) 087 Wild, Wild Rose, The 10/04/60 [Grace Chang]

(19) 088 Between Tears and Laughter 11/10/60 [Helen Li Mei]

(20) 089 Bachelors Beware 11/17/60 [Linda Lin Dai]

(21) 091 Death Traps 12/08/60 [Helen Li Mei and Roy Chiao]

(22) 094 Greatest Civil War on Earth, The 02/14/61 [Kitty Ting Hao, Christine Pai Lu-ming]

(23) 096 Beauty Parade 03/30/61 [Kitty Ting Hao]

(24) 101 Education of Love 08/03/61 [Jeanette Lin Cui]

(25) 107 Sun, Moon and Star (Part 1) 12/08/61 [Grace Chang, Lucilla You Min, Julie Yeh Feng]

(26) 108 Sun, Moon and Star (Part 2) 12/30/61 [Grace Chang, Lucilla You Min, Julie Yeh Feng]

(27) 111 It's Always Spring 02/21/62 [Julie Yeh Feng, Helen Li Mei, Annette Chang Hui-Hsien]

(28) 117 Ladies First 08/02/62 [Jeanette Lin Cui, Christine Pai Lu-ming, and Roy Chiao]

(29) 122 Greatest Wedding on Earth, The 10/11/62 [Kitty Ting Hao, Christine Pai Lu-ming]

(30) 130 Because of Her 07/31/63 [Grace Chang and Roy Chiao]

(31) 133 Father Takes a Bride 10/02/63 [Lucilla You Min]

(32) 138 Magic Lamp, The 01/23/64 [Grace Chang, Lucilla You Min, Jeannete Lin Cui]

(33) 139 Story of Three Loves, A 02/12/64 [Grace Chang, Jeanette Lin Cui, Roy Chiao]

(34) 140 Story of Three Loves (Sequel), A 02/26/64 [Grace Chang, Jeanette Lin Cui, Roy Chiao]

(35) 154 Fairy, Ghost, Vixen 05/27/65 [Annette Chang Hui-Hsien]

(36) 181 First Sword, The 12/28/67

(37) 183 Darling Stay At Home 01/28/68 [betty Loh Tih]

(38) 199 Spring Time Affairs 11/28/68 [Annette Chang Hui-Hsien]

(39) 215 Mad, Mad, Mad Sword, A 09/10/69

INTRODUCTION

oooooI came to Cathay films quite indirectly.

oooooI started out collecting Hong Kong films chiefly for Chang

Cheh's cycle of Venoms films and Jet Li's Hong Kong New Wave 1990's

films, then collected all of Cheng Pei-pei's films, then decided

that I liked Li Ching after seeing The Lotus Lamp, and started to

collect her stuff, then found that I liked Chang Cheh's 1966-1972

swordfighting films more than his Venoms films, then endeavored to

collect swordswoman films with an emphasis towards those with Lily

Ho because of her role in All Men Are Brothers, Shih Szu because

of The Lady Hermit, and Chin Ping because of her role in the Temple

of the Red Lotus trilogy and her appearance as one of the three

sisters in Hong Kong Nocturne.

oooooThen I decided to obtain all the Chang Cheh films the director

scripted before he was a director, and thus wound up watching the

Cathay film It's Always Spring. It's Always Spring starred Julie

Yeh Feng, Helen Li Mei, Roy Chiao, and Kelly Lai Chen. I liked it

and ordered what are considered to be perhaps the five key Cathay

films on the Panorama label: Our Sister Hedy, Mambo Girl, Sister

Long Legs, The Wild Wild Rose, and Air Hostess (not counting The

Greatest Civil War on Earth, which sounded too culture-specific).

oooooThen, I wound up collecting Hong Kong James Bond-esque films

like Angel with the Iron Fists, The Angel Strikes Again, The Golden

Buddha, The Lady Professional, Summons to Death, and Temptress of a

Thousand Faces, after finding web pages on Hong Kong secret agent

films. Then I started to collect Lily Ho and Jenny Hu (love her!)

romances, and anything with Fanny Fan Lai in it after having seen

her bare derriere in Angel with the Iron Fists. Meanwhile, I was

amassing more and more Cathay films.

oooooAs it stands, the Chang Cheh-directed films I have on VCD that

I have yet to watch are generally considered to be lesser films in

his oeuvre: Delightful Forest, Man of Iron, Four Riders, Young

People, Friends, The Delinquent (aka Street Gangs of Hong Kong),

Police Force, The Generation Gap, The Pirate, The Bloody Escape,

The Savage 5, and 7-man Army. I also have Death Ring on DVD that I

have yet to watch. I've seen everything else Chang Cheh ever

(co-)wrote or (co-)directed. No, really; I have. And I actually

like The Butterfly Chalice and The Nine Demons.

oooooWhat would my fave Chang Cheh films include? Let's see: It's

Always Spring (co-writer), The Mermaid (writer), The Butterfly

Chalice (co-director), The Magnificent Trio (a remake of the 1964

Japanese movie Three Outlaw Samurai, directed by Hideo Gosha), The

Trail of the Broken Blade, Have Sword Will Travel, Return of the

One-Armed Swordsman, The Deadly Duo, The Anonymous Heroes, The New

One-Armed Swordsman, The Iron Bodyguard, The Blood Brothers, Marco

Polo, Boxer Rebellion, Crippled Avengers, Shaolin Rescuers, The

Rebel Intruders, Masked Avengers, Five Element Ninjas, The Nine

Demons, and Great Shanghai 1937, at any rate.

oooooAfter seeing The Teahouse and its sequels Big Brother Cheng

and Big Bad Sis, I wound up collecting Chen Ping films because of

her searing starring role in Big Bad Sis. I have since seen her in

The Drug Connection (aka The Sexy Killer) and The Kiss of Death,

having not realized that I'd encountered her previously in Killer

Clans, The Oily Maniac (I have been a Swamp Thing fan since 1972,

and this film did not disappoint), and The Call Girls (which I saw

because Chang Cheh has a cameo as himself in it). Early on, I

confused Li Ching with Ching Li, and Chen Ping with Chin Ping!

oooooOf the Cathay actresses, I at first liked Julie Yeh Feng

(because of her role in It's Always Spring), Grace Chang, and Dolly

So Fung the most, but eventually came to appreciate Lucilla You Min,

Grace Chang, and Helen Li Mei the most, even though I have a soft

spot for Kitty Ting Hao, now, too. I am conflicted over Jeanette Lin

Cui, whom I respect as an actress but don't really like especially,

and my view of Julie Yeh Feng has changed after watching the 5 Shaw

Brothers films she appeared in that are on disc (The Shepherd Girl,

The Warlord and the Actress [scripted by Chang Cheh!], Pink Tears,

Unfinished Melody; and Farewell, My Love -- the last of which pairs

her with Jenny Hu for a tearjerk bonanza that has to be seen to be

believed), because they showcase her acting ability more than her

hotness. I also like Wang Li, whom I recognize as being one Cathay's

most capable actresses.

oooooAfter seeing Betty Loh Tih play a blind swordswoman in the

independent wuxia pian Duel at the Supreme Gate (on Rarescope DVD)

and viewing the one Cathay disc that she stars in (Darling, Stay at

Home), I liked her enough that I obtained the Shaw Brothers musical

The Dancing Millionairess because I thought it was the only disc

released pairing her with her husband Peter Chen Ho, whom I already

liked after having seen him in Hong Kong Nocturne as part of my Cheng

Pei-pei viewing spree. I then bought the rest of her Shaw Brothers

output available on disc (The Bride Napping, The Dream of The Red

Chamber, The Enchanting Shadow, The Love Eterne, Sons of Good Earth,

and The Story of Sue San), not having known at the time that Sons of

Good Earth co-starred Peter Chen Ho. Acquiring this small batch of

discs took some doing; since most of Betty Loh Tih's VCDs are

out-of-print, I had to obtain three of the films on Thai Celestial

DVD (because they're Region 0), and they're going out of print, too.

oooooHow is it that I came from collecting Jet Li and Venoms films

to collecting Cathay and Betty Loh Tih films? One of my

longest-running interests has been in the dozen-plus Shaw Brothers

kung fu movies directed by Chang Cheh between 1977 and 1981 which

starred the largely-Peking Opera-trained ensemble known to fans as

The Five Venoms (Kuo Chui, Chiang Sheng, Lu Feng, Lo Meng and Sun

Chien). I saw at least five of these films (The Kid with the Golden

Arm, Shaolin Rescuers, Ten Tigers of Kuangtung, Flag of Iron, and

Masked Avengers) first-run in neighborhood American movie theatres.

What I am about to relate now may not sound relevant at first, but it

is, as you'll see. Twenty years later, I learned that I was androgyne,

i.e. psychologically androgynous (someone with the gender identity of

both a man and a woman, or a gender identity in between that of a man

and a woman, if you prefer), and since most people aren't familiar

with the concept nor the term, I researched diligently and made a

website to explain it. It's at http://androgyne.0catch.com. Two years

later, Celestial began releasing their Shaw library to disc, and one

year after that, Panorama began releasing their Cathay library to disc.

oooooIntricately-choreographed asian-made martial arts films appeal to

my androgyne sensibilities in that they are combative on the one hand

and balletic on the other. Not a few people, including Chang Cheh

himself, have observed that Venoms films look as much like dancing as

fighting, and that's often why contemporary martial arts movie fans

don't like "old school" kung fu movies: because their moviegoing

history (except for Jackie Chan) usually doesn't have elements of

Chinese opera in it. The following is a quote from pages 126-127 of

the book Chang Cheh: A Memoir: "Many years ago when I was making

martial arts films in Shaws, Run Run Shaw once remarked, 'How come the

fighting looks so much like dancing?' Not so long ago, [the renowned

film critic] Sek Kei [aka Shi Qi] made a similar observation in his

column, remarking that Chinese martial arts is quite akin to dance

choreography. In fact, it is. Northern style kung fu has long been

affiliated with stage performance. The wu (martial) repertoire

in traditional kunqu, Peking Opera and Sichuan opera, in many

ways, resembles narrative dance in ballet or modern dance."

oooooOne year after Panorama began their release of Cathay films, I

learned that I have Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism marked by

social impairments such as missed social cues and a highly-lacking

understanding of subtle eye movements and body language, and

perfectionistic perseverence in narrow areas of interest, so my guess

is that one reason I wound up liking romances starring Betty Loh Tih,

Li Ching, Lily Ho, Jenny Hu, and the Cathay players is that they all

take place in a non-peer milieu, i.e. in another culture and another

time, since I am a Jewish-American of European descent. The subject

matter of these films operate in very different contexts than mine,

and therefore the broad strokes are more easily understood and less

threatening to me. They also appeal to my feminine side (since

androgynes are in between men and women, psychologically).

oooooAlrighty, then! Now that all that's out of the way . . .

oooooI watched eleven Cathay films before determining to review them

all, so the observations I made for the first 11 reviews are not as

fresh as the other twenty-eight. Has anyone else online reviewed all

39 of Panorama's Cathay releases? Not in English, at any rate; no.

Well, I'm not sure I have either, actually, since my contribution

here seems to constitute a commentary moreso than a body of reviews,

but I thought I'd share, just the same. I watched all 39 Panorama

releases in an 11-month timeframe, from March 2010 to January 2011.

oooooCathay Studios released 250+ films from 1955 to around 1972,

and Panorama released 39 of them to VCD and DVD between 2003 and

2006, with A Story of Three Loves and Sun, Moon and Star both

re-issued as 4-disc VCD sets in 2009. All of Panorama's Cathay VCDs

and DVDs are subtitled in Chinese and English, and all of their DVDs

are Region 0 even though they are marked as Region 3.

oooooHoker Records of Taiwan issued nine Cathay titles, and they are

all Region 0 and subitled in Chinese and English, even though they

are marked as being subtitled only in Chinese. The Hoker Records

titles are Mambo Girl, Air Hostess, Forever Yours, The Greatest Civil

War on Earth, The Greatest Wedding on Earth; Sun, Moon and Star

(issued on one disc as one long film); Spring-time Affairs, Because

of Her; Fairy, Ghost, Vixen; and The [sic] Story of Three Loves

(issued on one disc as one long film). I recommend all these films to

one degree or another except for Spring-time Affairs and Because of

Her. The sole source of Hoker Records Cathay DVDs that I have found

online is YesAsia. Note that they had some Hoker Records Cathay VCDs

(Mambo Girl, Air Hostess, The Greatest Civil War On Earth; Sun, Moon

And Star [on 4 discs]; and Fairy, Ghost, Vixen), as well, but they're

all sold out (or out-of-print?) right now.

oooooThe Greatest Civil War on Earth is out-of-print on Panorama DVD,

so grab it on Taiwanese Hoker Records DVD while you can. A Story of

Three Loves Pts. 1 and 2 are both out-of-print on Panorama DVD, and

Sun, Moon and Star Pts. 1 and 2 are getting scarce, but A Story of

Three Loves Pts. 1 and 2 can both still be obtained on DVD as part of

the five-disc The Films of Wong Tin Lam boxset, which consists of The

Story Of Three Loves I, The Story Of Three Loves II, Because Of Her,

Death Traps, and Mad, Mad, Mad Swords, or together as one long film

on Taiwan DVD. Also out-of-print on Panorama DVD are Our Dream Car and

Spring Song.

oooooThe June Bride DVD stops and skips during its last minute, and

The Education of Love DVD has mastering problems including stopping

and skipping during its first 30 minutes and last 2 minutes, so

getting the VCD of these films is recommended to ensure playability,

despite the fact that the June Bride VCD is scarce and now available

only as part of the five-disc The Films of Grace Chang boxset, which

consists of Mambo Girl, Spring Song, Because Of Her, Forever Yours,

and June Bride.

oooooCinderella and Her Little Angels is out-of-print on both DVD and

VCD, and Beauty Parade is scarce on both DVD and VCD. Our Sister Hedy

and The Wild, Wild Rose are getting scarce, and Mambo Girl might be

the next title to go the scarcity route, although there is a Hoker

Records DVD version of Mambo Girl still available.

oooooOne more thing: Cathay/MP&GI films prior to 1963 are Academy

ratio. Cathay Scope began in 1963 around the time of the release of

Because of Her (07/31/63). All films issued on Panorama and Hoker

Records disc are academy ratio and therefore pan and scan or cropped

at the left and right. None are widescreen/letterboxed. C'est la vie.

KEY: [00] = indicates the order in which I watched the thirty-nine films

ooooo0.0 stars = indicates my own rating of a film on a five-point scale

ooooo(00) = indicates the chronological order of films available on disc

ooooo000 = indicates the chronological order of a film's theatrical release

ooooo00/00/00 = indicates a film's actual date of theatrical release

DEMONSTRATION

o+---- indicates the order in which I watched the thirty-nine films

o|

o|oooooooo+---- indicates my own rating of a film on a five-point scale

o|oooooooo|

o|oooooooo|oooooo+---- indicates the chronological order of films available on disc

o|oooooooo|oooooo|

o|oooooooo|oooooo|ooo+---- indicates the chronological order of a film's theatrical release

o|oooooooo|oooooo|ooo|

o|oooooooo|oooooo|ooo|oooooooooooooooo+---- indicates a film's actual date of theatrical release

[03] 5.0 stars (01) 017 Mambo Girl 03/06/57

COMMENTS ON THE 39 CATHAY FILMS RELEASED ON PANORAMA VCD AND DVD

[01] 4.0 stars (27) 111 It's Always Spring 02/21/62

oooooThe 1962 film It's Always Spring was my first experience

with the Cathay Studio because I am a Chang Cheh collector and

he wrote the script with some help from the film's director.

(This is the only Cathay film with a Chang Cheh script available

on disc, by the way, because he provided only script doctoring

for Death Traps.) I was immediately smitten by its star, Julie

Yeh Feng, who is apparently considered to be Hong Kong's answer

to Kim Novak, and intrigued by her co-star, the reserved yet

smoldering Helen Li Mei, who had worked with Chang Cheh on His

Cruel Heart in 1956 and Wild Fire in 1957. This was my first

time seeing Roy Chiao other than in Enter the Dragon, Enter the

Fat Dragon, and Tower of Death (aka Game of Death II), and my

first encounter with Kelly Lai Chen, who is the brother of Betty

Loh Tih (who co-starred with Ivy Ling Po in The Love Eterne). The

story involves a rivalry between two singers, and it is really

quite entertaining, with memorable tunes and performances. There

is a pair of dogged, mostly one-sided romances woven through the

proceedings. Annette Chang plays a spunky go-getter who is an

understudy of sorts to Julie Yeh Feng. Highly recommended.

[02] 5.0 stars (03) 028 Our Sister Hedy 11/14/57

oooooI went into Our Sister Hedy prepared to drool over Julie Yeh

Feng, who I liked in It's Always Spring, and who I'd heard played

a temptress to a T in this film, but I was not prepared for the

wonderful ensemble acting and involving storytelling. The plot

details the romantic efforts of three sisters, played by Muk Hung,

Julie Yeh Feng, and Dolly So Fung, and a fourth sister, the title

Hedy, played by Jeanette Lin Cui, who is ostensibly content to stay

at home and be daddy's little girl while smoothing things out behind

the scenes. Maybe I'm a sap for liking this so much, but I really

did. This is the first time I'd seen Jeanette Lin Cui (whose only

Shaw Bros film was The Golden Buddha), and I instantly liked the

long-faced Dolly So Fung. I was really surprised to encounter Tin

Ching playing an affable, wholesome guy, after having first seen

him as a backstabbing weasel in The Boxer from Shantung, and Peter

Chen Ho playing a dour architect, after having previously seen him

only in Hong Kong Nocturne, opposite Cheng Pei-pei and Lily Ho.

[03] 5.0 stars (01) 017 Mambo Girl 03/06/57

oooooMambo Girl introduced me to the ebullient and talented Grace

Chang, who plays the most talented singer and dancer in her school.

It co-stars Peter Chen Ho, who'd I'd encountered in Our Sister Hedy

and as the male lead in the Cheng Pei-pei musical Hong Kong Nocturne,

and it's a mostly upbeat tale save the plot thread of the title girl

searching for her adoptive mother. Shaw Brothers apparently more or

less remade the film with Li Ching as A Place to Call Home, but minus

the musical stylings. The music in Mambo Girl is organic to the plot

and is infectious. Kitty Ting Hao makes an early appearance (she was

only 18), as does future wife of Run Run Shaw, Mona Fong (under the

name Fang Yihua), who we see sing an entire song in a nightclub. Fong

is prettier here than she is in the 1965 Shaw Brothers film The Lark.

This is a good, solid dramatic film, which is something you might not

expect since it is in large part a musical. See it.

[04] 3.0 stars (12) 068 Sister Long Legs 02/06/1960

oooooI went into Sister Long Legs with high hopes, since Julie Yeh

Feng wears glasses in this film and looks cute in them, but I was

not prepared for what it was: a screwball comedy of manners between

two classes: urban and suburban Chinese. The performances are all

endearing, and Roy Chiao shines as a shy automobile mechanic who

attracts Yeh Feng, but I found much of the proceedings overwrought.

Yeh Feng and Jeanette Lin Cui, who have very different personalites,

play off each other well and are both great in this, and Ting Ching

is fun as a bumbling suitor, but I was not taken with the material.

After having watched the entirety of Panorama's output of Cathay

discs, I returned to re-watch this film (the new review is at [40]),

thinking that I might have been unfair. As it turns out, I liked it

a lot more the second time, since I was more familiar with the stars,

bit players, genres, and genre conventions of the Cathay studio.

[05] 5.0 stars (18) 087 The Wild, Wild Rose 10/04/60

oooooThe Wild, Wild Rose is probably the most polished and classic

MP&GI film in the Hollywood sense. Grace Chang plays extremely

against type as a wily, man-eating nightclub singer, and this film

details her lusty power and her decline after falling for the wrong

man. A must-see, but only after seeing at least one other Grace

Chang film in order to put the magnitude of her performance into

perspective. Grace is a great singer and a singular persona, and

everything she does here is mesmerizing. A noirish-flavored film,

worthy of being considered a classic in every way. The story has

several key elements from Carmen and Sternberg's Der Blau Angel.

A handsome fellow named Zhang Yang plays the doomed smitten

character reminiscent of the one in Der Blau Angel, Ting Ching

plays a bandmate who is jealous of him, and Dolly So Fung is a

standout as his long-suffering erstwhile fiance. Originally,

Grace turned down doing this film. She suggested that Julie Yeh

Feng play the role, instead.

[06] 3.5 stars (07) 050 Air Hostess 06/04/59

oooooAir Hostess stars three of my MP&GI favorites, Grace Chang,

Julie Yeh Feng, and So Fung, and was my second dose of the era's

performances by Roy Chiao. He plays an overly serious flight pilot

here, and his co-pilot is played by his MP&GI antithesis, Kelly Lai

Chen. This is a color film, bright and earnest, with rich hues. I

thought it was okay, but I'm surprised to find that it's regarded

highly. Maybe it's because it's a memorable time capsule for those

who saw it in its first release, as it reflects the appeal of the

commercial air travel of its day. The bulk of the film is comprised

of women in stewardess school, and Grace Chang is radiant in it, so

there's that, too. While in school, an instructor makes a comment

about the way Yeh Feng walks, asking her to rein in it a little,

as the audience is treated to a rear view of Yeh Feng's wide hips

swinging. Hee hee. Air Hostess is really Grace Chang's show, though,

and the camera adores her. Trivia: Yeh Feng's second husband was

Zhang Yang. Her third was the Shaw Brothers leading man Ling Yun,

who I've seen in Hong Kong Nocturne, the Jenny Hu version of Love

Without End (in which he co-starred), and Clans of Intrigue.

[07] 5.0 stars (06) 049 Her Tender Heart 05/21/59

oooooHer Tender Heart was my introduction to Lucilla You Min, and

she is really quite affecting. It would be easy to say that it's

because of her saucer-sized eyes, but it's more than that. She has

a quiet, controlled inner beauty and she underplays what could have

been an overdramatized part to great affect as she essays the role

of a relatively naive young girl. This film deals with a child's

relationship with a single parent, and also a conflict between an

adoptive parent and a birth parent, and as an adoptee myself, I

found the choices she makes to be quite refreshing. Zhang Yang plays

an altogether different and nicer man here than he did in The Wild,

Wild Rose. Wang Lai adds great nuance as the birth parent who is torn

between her old relationship with the birth father and her new one

with the daughter who doesn't realize who she is, while Wang Yin

works wonders as the adoptive father who only wants the best for his

daughter, who in turn is caught in the middle without understanding

the nature of their relationship. I thought this film was moving and

memorable, with wonderful performances, and I recommend it highly.

[08] 3.0 stars (08) 052 Our Dream Car 07/09/59

oooooOur Dream Car is the story of a highly attractive young couple,

played by Grace Chang and Zhang Yang, who undertake financing a car

even though they really can't afford it, and the strain it puts on

their marriage. Grace buys the after being cajoled by car salesman

Kelly Lai Chen, who is the boyfriend she had right before meeting

Zhang Yang, so both Kelly Lai Chen and the car itself are the impetus

for strife. Much has been said about this film being a paean to

consumerism, and indeed at one point, Grace Chang sings a song about

the car that has a section that sounds like a communist work song,

but it works more as a time capsule, when buying a car was a true pop

culture event. Grace is really a knockout in this film, and she wears

several ornate, modern, highly flattering cheongsams. Zhang Yang plays

her husband very naturalistically, and he is shown both in a good and

a bad light, as the situation and story dictates. Close-ups of the two

actutely photogenic stars appear in the film frequently, so this is a

real glamor parade. The movie itself is only so-so, though, and works

best as a vehicle for matinee idol worship of Grace. Very cool is the

fact that the menu page of the Our Dream Car DVD plays the entirety of

the Car song before beginning the film.

[09] 2.5 stars (05) 044 Spring Song 02/14/59

oooooSpring Song details the rivalry between two college girls, one

a singer and the other an athlete, as played by Grace Chang and

Jeanette Lin Cui. It's kind of cool to see Jeanette with long hair in

a ponytail, just like Grace has here, because she usually has short

hair in her roles. Peter Chen, Tin Ching, and Roy Chiao play upper

classmen, and Wang Lai plays the music teacher in charge of the two

girls' hostel (dorm) that they share with two other roommates. The

timid Peter is an old friend of Jeannete's and is buddies with star

athlete Roy, while Tin Ching plays an affable bully (if there is such

a thing). Jeanette likes Roy, but Roy likes Grace. Grace likes Peter,

and that makes Jeanette jealous. Both actresses are charismatic and

riveting here, and the script plays to their strengths, but the roles

are indulgent. Their rivalry becomes too serious, and this leaves a

slightly sour taste as the two feud with each other for almost half

the film's running time over their mutual lack of ability in each

other's areas of strength, and over the men they like. It is indeed

fun, however, to see Roy Chiao play a jock who can't dance. For those

who care, you get to see him shirtless when he benchpresses free

weights and drives a boat while Jeanette Lin Cui waterskis. He was

Cathay's only real beefcake.

[10] 4.5 stars (13) 073 Forever Yours 04/07/60

oooooForever Yours is a devastating weepie about a woman, played by

Grace Chang, who falls in love with an adoring, poetic man, played by

Kelly Lai Chen, who makes bonsai arrangements and has a seemingly

terminal disease. The sacrifices she makes to keep him happy are like

the ones the husband makes in Love Without End (certainly like in the

1961 Linda Lin Dai version, but less so in the 1970 Jenny Hu re-make),

and are heartbreaking. The film is somber and downbeat, with evocative,

nuanced noirish lighting, and features a more-masculine-than-usual

performance by the ordinarily elfin and fey Kelly Lai Chen (who is the

brother of Betty Loh Tih!) as the husband. As others have pointed out,

this is the only film in which Grace Chang does not dance nor sing a

single song. She's a very good actress, though, so her work here is

not a stretch, by any means. Think of the second half of Mambo Girl,

wherein Grace searches for her mother; and the last third of The Wild,

Wild Rose, where she lies low and tries to save her beloved; and

you'll have an idea of the mode she is in in this film. (Later on, I

found that her role in the two-part epic Sun, Moon and Star bears

much in common with her role in Forever Yours, as well.) I thought

this film was great and recommend it highly. Apparently, this is one

of Grace's most underappreciated films. Be sure to bring tissues with

you if you see it, which I suggest you do.

[11] 3.0 stars (11) 066 June Bride 01/27/60

oooooJune Bride concerns three men competing for the attention of

Grace Chang. On a cruise ship, goofy would-be loverboy guitarist

Tin Ching tries to romance singer Grace Chang who is traveling to

Hong Kong to marry Zhang Yang. Zhang Yang is pals with a nightclub

songstress (who looks vaguely like Julie Yeh Feng), even though he

is engaged to Grace. Roy Chiao plays a man who we first see highly

intoxicated who is engaged to a woman who apparently may no longer be

interested in him. Seeing how drunk he is, Chiao takes pity on him

and lets him crash at his place. He then tries to set Chiao up with

his nightclub pal, but accidentally, Chiao doesn't meet the nightclub

songstress, but with Grace the songstress, instead. He gets her

drunk, and it's her first time drinking. The choreography of Grace's

drunk scene is great. It's overstated, but in a good way. Then comes

a musical dream sequence where Grace wears a bridal gown and dances

first with Zhang Yang, then Tin Ching, then Roy Chiao. When Grace

shops for a real wedding dress, her best friend turns out to be Dolly

So Fung. Yay! But then Grace calls off the wedding because she is

conflicted. This film is a combination of musical and screwball

comedy, and really doesn't quite come together, but there are many

memorable moments amid the jumble. My DVD stopped and skipped during

the last minute-and-a-half of the film. Note that this glitch might

exist in all copies of the DVD: I returned mine, and the seller's

distributor replaced it with a disc that did the very same thing.

[12] 4.0 stars (25) 107 Sun, Moon and Star (Part 1) 12/08/61

[13] 3.5 stars (26) 108 Sun, Moon and Star (Part 2) 12/30/61

oooooSun, Moon and Star is an epic love story in two parts, taking

place before, during and after the Sino-Japanese war. Zhang Yang

falls in love with poor neighbor Lucilla You Min, then with his

wealthy cousin Grace Chang, then with Chinese nationalist Julie Yeh

Feng, but it's Julie Yeh Feng that he's really hung up on, leading

him to join the military just to track her down. He's a foolhardy,

smitten sap. Grace eventually learns about Lucilla, takes pity on

her, and virtually adopts her, and both women serve in the war in

one capacity or another. At one point, the destinies of all three

women interlap, but the meeting is brief. Like his character in The

Wild, Wild Rose, Zhang Yang can't get one woman (Julie Yeh Feng, in

this case) out of his head, and makes himself and everyone else

miserable for it. Were it not for his character's over-the-top

thickheadedness, this two-parter would have been a classic. Lucilla

You Min is outstanding in this film, even better than in Her Tender

Heart, and won the Golden Horse Best Actress award for her efforts.

Highly recommended for the three actresses' performances and hours

of quality drama, despite the fact that Zhang Yang's character casts

a pall over much of the film.

[14] 4.0 stars (09) 055 For Better, For Worse 08/20/59

oooooIn For Better, for Worse, the ordinarily opulent and glamorous

Helen Li Mei, who I'd liked in It's Always Spring, plays a put-upon

wife who is browbeaten by her husband's decadent sister after her

husband loses his job. It is really easy to identify with Li Mei in

this film, although the patience she exhibits while supporting her

husband above and beyond the call of duty is often heartbreaking and

exasperating. The trouble starts soon after they are married, when

the husband's sister, a very disagreeable woman -- okay, an outright

asshole -- played by Lau Sin-Mung, refuses to attend the couple's

wedding dinner on the grounds that Li Mei is a widow and that such a

woman brings bad luck to the (extended) family, the irony being that

the only real bad luck brought to the family is the result of the

sister herself, who proceeds to treat Li Mei and her daughter from

her previous marriage like dirt. Zhang Yang plays the husband in an

even more earnest and clueless mode than he displayed in Sun, Moon,

Star, as he is egged on by his awful aunt. He is a handsome man but

tends to have a streak of unlikeability and a penchant for ruining

the lives of the woman characters he plays off of. Prime examples

being The Wild, Wild Rose and Sun, Moon and Star, both of which make

you want to slap him for very different reasons. Dolly So Fung plays

Li Mei's sister, and Tin Ching plays her fiance -- as he did in Our

Sister Hedy -- with a distinct lack of clowning. Child actress Connie

Chan Po-Chu, who plays Li Mei's daughter, is very good. I found this

film to be well acted and memorable, and recommend it.

[15] 3.5 stars (21) 091 Death Traps 12/08/60

oooooDeath Traps is a noir about a woman who in a fit of drunken

jealous pique, puts out a contract on anyone who her erstwhile

beau marries, only to wind up marrying him herself and hence being

the designee of the contract. Tin Ching plays a crooked smoothie,

but one not as harsh as the backstabber he played in Boxer from

Shantung. It has been claimed that Chang Cheh wrote the script,

but he actually only did re-writes (script-doctoring), perhaps as

a favor to star Li Mei, who he had worked with on The Cruel Heart

of My Man in 1956 and Wildfire in 1957. Chang Cheh thought the

script ultimately a failure, but I found the film to be rather

good. It is certainly involving. I thought that Helen Li Mei as

the woman and Roy Chiao as her beau were well suited to the genre,

and I would like to see them again in a noir vein if such films

were to be made available on disc.

[16] 3.0 stars (19) 088 Between Tears and Laughter 11/10/60

oooooThree Cathay stars representing three very different personas

and bodies of work are represented in Between Tears and Laughter.

Wang Lai plays a divorced woman with a young son, Helen Li Mei plays

a novelist scared of new relationships, and Kitty Ting Hao plays a

perky girl anxious to meet her Singaporean penpal, played by Roy

Chiao. Having Li Mei and Ting Hao in the same film is a disorienting

experience, and having Wang Lai play a peer to these two women adds

to the disorientation. This is the first time I'd really gotten a

good taste of Kitty Ting Hao because her role was so small in Mambo

Girl, and I was not too taken with her here because she is way too

snippy with her ardent, ingenuous suitor, Tin Ching (who is also her

boss at work), on account of being hung up on the penpal whom she has

yet to meet. Li Mei's introduction in this film is highly unglamorous

as we first see her asleep in bed with a relative lack of -- or at

least unflattering -- makeup. Wang Li's estranged husband is played

very straight by Shaw Brothers regular Yeung Chi-Hing, whom she

encounters while visiting her young son who has been in the hospital

with polio for a year. While all three women work through anguished

situations by the time the film ends, I felt especially bad for Li

Mei's character, and was gratified when her situation changed for the

better. It's this portion of the film that I enjoyed most, since I

like Li Mei quite a bit.

[17] 2.5 stars (30) 130 Because of Her 07/31/63

oooooBecause of Her has Grace Chang fronting a musical troupe and

performing eloborate dance routines in full color, but many of

the scenes seem rushed and don't always fit in with the plot of

the film. The main plot consists of Grace starting a relationship

with Kelly Lai Chen who takes a job in Japan rather than marrying

her, which results in Grace having a child out of wedlock. Her

manager, played by an avuncular Roy Chiao playing against type

with frosted salt-and-pepper hair, marries her and takes up

responsibility for her child to keep his star attraction from

scandal and from diminished revenue for himself. Alas, Kelly Lai

Chen comes back and joins the musical troupe, and make a mess of

things by constantly making a play for Grace. It is a mystery to

me how she -- and especially Roy -- puts up with it. Kelly is

really an obsessed figure here, almost as tragic as Zhang Yang

was in The Wild, Wild Rose.

[NA] Duel at the Supreme Gate (studio: Gam Ying) 07/25/1968

oooooDuel at the Supreme Gate is not a Cathay film, but one made

by Betty Loh Tih and director Yuen Chau-Fung (the co-director of

Chang Cheh's The Butterfly Chalice) for their short-lived Golden

Eagle Film Company. It stars Loh Tih, and co-stars her brother

Kelly Lai Chen, and Zhang Yang. Playing strongly against type,

the usually effete Lai Chen is almost unrecognizable as the

villain. Loh Tih plays a swordswoman with a storied past who is

blinded and yet is still able to fight. The plot is forced and

stilted, but Loh Tih and Zhang Yang's interplay is affecting and

absorbing. Loh Tih is quite memorable here in this film issued in

the US by Rarescope. Loh Tih made eight films with Cathay, while

Lai Chen and Zhang Yang were Cathay mainstays. See it for Loh Tih.

[18] 1.5 stars (36) 181 The First Sword 12/28/67

oooooFor those used to Shaw Brothers, Cathay's first wuxia pian,

The First Sword, will seem overly restrained. The swordplay is

by-the-numbers, and despite the presence of most of the tropes

of the genre, the film never really convinces you of the hero's

ability. He is a stuffed shirt and clueless as to the nefarious

machinations going on around him. Tin Ching is over-the-top as

a one-note Faustian traitor who hatches plot after plot.

[19] 2.5 stars (32) 138 The Magic Lamp 01/23/64

oooooThe beginning ten minutes of The Magic Lamp are lost and

replaced with a title card. The remainder is a telling of the same

story as Shaw Brothers' The Lotus Lamp. Although it pre-dates The

First Sword, and is more a Huangmei opera than a wuxia pian, the

naturally athletic Jeanette Lin Cui performs impressive swordplay

in one climactic scene. Grace Chang's tearful portrayal is a bit

overplayed, but Lucilla You Min does a good job with the material,

as does Jeanette Lin Cui.

[20] 5.0 stars (14) 074 Devotion 04/21/60

oooooDevotion concerns the devotion a housemaid, played by Ou-Yang

Sha-Fei, has towards her daughter, and marks the first time a HK

actress (Ou-Yang Sha-Fei) won Best Supporting Actress at an

international film festival. The film stars Kitty Ting Hao in two

roles, as well as Roy Chiao, and Zhang Yang in a rare role wherein

he atypically plays someone who is not a selfish, self-involved

git (see The Wild, Wild Rose and Sun, Moon and Star for cases in

point) but a fun guy and fine man. I admit to being shocked seeing

him in a positive role for once. The plot often seems fragmentary,

going off on many tangents, but by film's end, everything comes

together. Kitty Ting Hao proves to be almost as affecting as

Lucilla You Min was in Sun, Moon and Star, which I didn't expect,

but the roles have a bit in common, since they both have the women

playing poor country girls with braids. Several heartwrenching

scenes appear in this film, so you'll need handkerchiefs to view

this one. This is among the best Cathay films I have seen so far,

and it did much to change my perception of Kitty Ting Hao whom I

hadn't really liked in Between Tears and Laughter.

[21] 3.0 stars (20) 089 Bachelors Beware 11/17/60

oooooBachelors Beware is a comedy, and perhaps I was not in the

right mindset, having just recently seen a Cathay melodrama that

was rather wrenching, but there's something about star Linda Lin

Dai that hasn't clicked with me yet. My only previous encounters

with her had been the Shaw Brothers films Love without End (in

which she plays a woman with a terminal disease) and The Lotus

Lamp, in which she plays a fairy, and so her impish role in this

film wasn't something I was prepared for. Zhang Yang plays the

part of a playboy with three girlfriends, and Lin Dai plays his

cousin come to visit and woo him. Straightaway, she sizes up her

competition and sets to derailing all her cousin's relationships

in quick succession. My trouble was in identifying with her rather

than with the put-upon recipients of her machinations. I guess

this is understandable after having seen several Cathay dramas in

which the long-suffering female leads fall victim either to others

or to circumstance. Against type, the wonderful Dolly So Fung plays

a rich socialite, and Zhang Yang is uncharacteristically delightful.

[22] 2.5 stars (38) 199 Spring Time Affairs 11/28/68

oooooIn Spring-time Affairs, a barely-recognizable Zhang Yang, with

hair combed dashingly across his forehead, plays a married violin

virtuoso who becomes smitten with a nightclub singer, played by

Annette Chang, who was Julie Yeh Feng's memorable, spunky sidekick

in It's Always Spring. Being that it's from late 1968, the film is

in color, but it is mood piece just the same, thanks in part to some

woozily-lensed images and extreme close-ups. The plot is slight but

the somber, yearning, slightly bleak tone of the film carries it,

sort of like in the way of a Tarkovsky film like Solaris or Stalker.

And as with a Tarkovsky film, the viewing is a turgid experience

whereas the resultant processing of information and emotions yields

resonant evocation. An odd experience, it could also be compared to

the style of Alain Resnais, I suppose.

[23] 2.5 stars (23) 096 Beauty Parade 03/30/61

oooooBeauty Parade is a fluff piece about country girl Kitty Ting

Hao being accepted in a city high school. She is very cute but

the film isn't even as serious as Spring Song, where Grace Chang

and Jeanette Lin Cui played adversarial college student roommates.

Tin Ching plays a country bumpkin smitten by Kitty, and Kelly Lai

Chen plays Kitty's best friend's brother who likes Kitty, but no

romantic relationship flourishes in this film. Rather, Kitty

excells in sports to the detriment of her studies, and has to try

hard to stay in school. Lo Wei plays her father, and it is

surprising to see him emote with tears in his eyes -- a great

departure from all the pompous roles he had at Shaw Brothers. A

slight, but enjoyable film, but really only recommended for those

who like Kitty Ting Hao, who is undeniably cute.

[24] 5.0 stars (22) 094 The Greatest Civil War on Earth 02/14/61

oooooBeing an American who does not speak Chinese and has never

visited the Asian hemisphere, I went in to seeing The Greatest

Civil War on Earth assuming that this cultural comedy of manners

pitting Northern (Mandarin) against Southern (Cantonese) mores

would go over my head, but surprisingly found few impediments to

enjoying this classic film. Cathay mainstay Liu En-Jia, a jovial,

rotund man who is usually given supporting roles, is here one of

two lead characters, the other being likewise portly. The two men

are tailors and have daughters who fancy suitors from the other

culture. They continually try to one-up each other and make a show

about how their culture is best, while the harried daughters try

to make to best of things. At one point, mismatched couples go to

the movies, and we're treated to three scenes of Grace Chang in

The Wild Wild Rose. Liu En-Jia's character's daughter, a

stewardess with a stylish bob, is played delightfully by Kitty

Ting Hao, and Kelly Lai Chen plays a role that has layers that

are at first not readily apparent. This film breezes by at a fast

clip like an old Hollywood comedy. Highly recommended.

[25] 3.0 stars (29) 122 The Greatest Wedding on Earth 10/11/62

oooooThe Greatest Wedding on Earth is the 1962 follow-up to the

1961 hit The Greatest Civil War on Earth, and features much the

same cast, but where the feuding Northern and Southern men were

tailors in the first film, they are here restaurateurs, and the

comedy is courser and less intricately plotted, despite a script

by esteemed novelist Eileen Chang. Not paricularly recommended

unless you are Chinese or speak both Cantonese and Mandarin. The

charm of this film pales in comparison to its predecessor. Not

even a liking for Kitty Ting Hao is enough to recommend this all

that much, really. The female lead (also of The Greatest Civil

War), Christine Pai Lu-Ming, befuddles me in that she looks a

lot like Jeanette Lin Cui, but acts quite differently.

[26] 2.5 stars (28) 117 Ladies First 08/02/62

oooooLadies First involves two women, played by Jeanette Lin Cui

and Christine Pai Lu-ming, and two men, played by Roy Chiao and

Tin Ching, who meet, yet who are at odds with their chosen ones.

Jeanette likes Roy, while Christine likes Tin, but Roy likes

Christine, while Tin likes Jeanette. Both men try to match with

the woman of their choice despite the women trying to change

their pairing, and both women try to match with the man of their

choice despite the men trying to change their pairing. The four

get pretty devious in the end, to the point of really politically

incorrect bits about trying to get the other pair drunk and in

compromising positions in hotel rooms. One bit even has the two

men in an alleyway fist fight while the two women egg them on,

going as far as shouting, "Keep going!" to the men. Roy Chiao's

shirtless muscular torso is played up when the four people first

meet at a beach. A very young David Chiang, then billed as Yan

Wei, plays Christine's little brother. The two fathers from the

Greatest...on Earth films make cameo appearances. Christine Pai

Lu-Ming, who I'd previously though looks a lot like Jeanette Lin

Cui, looks much less so when paired with her in the same film.

Cathay was a mostly Mandarin production company, but they had a

Cantonese division, and Christine was one of its major stars. I

liked her more than Jeannette in this film. She radiates a quiet

intelligence that, among the Cathay actresses I have seen, is

surpassed only by the regal, willowy Wang Lai -- who here plays

Jeanette's mother -- or by perhaps Li Mei.

[27] 3.5 stars (04) 030 The Splendour of Youth 12/11/57

oooooThe Splendour of Youth (aka The Tender Age), from 1957, is a

sordid melodrama about a schoolgirl misled into depravity by her

best friend's mother. At this point, I had seen 25 of Panorama's

Cathay films, so I was surprised to find not one familiar face in

this film. The acting is quite good, but the plot content, which

concerns decadent aristocratic partiers, is appalling, rife with

unsavory characters manipulating each other for their own ends.

The last ten minutes of the film trots out one heartwrenching

trainwreck after another, to the point where one's credulity is

strained to the maximum and beyond. The overall content of what

transpires would merit an R rating even to this day, even though

there are no curse words nor nudity, so it must have been quite

shocking for 1957. It would have been so for 1967, too, actually.

I suppose claims could be made for this film's having camp value,

but only of a cynical Andy Warhol or David Lynch sort. I must

admit, however, that the film stayed with and grew on me, on the

strength of the characters and the acting. Powerful stuff.

[28] 2.5 stars (17) 084 Dreams Come True 08/27/60

oooooIn Dreams Come True, Kitty Ting Hao plays a poor orphan girl

who sells flowers and is hassled by two local toughs who extort

her for protection money. Since this is primarily a comedy, she

is saved when at a ship arrival, a wealthy young man, played by

Kelly Lai Chen, mistakes her for a woman due to arrive from San

Francisco and takes her home. The bulk of the film has Kitty

hiding from Kelly's family finding out her true identity, while

trying to evade her extorters. When the real San Francisco woman

arrives, it is Kitty in a tight shimmery cheongsam with coke

bottle glasses and fake protruding upper canine teeth. Looking

for their missing daughter, the orphan girl's parents mistake the

San Francisco woman for their own. To her credit, Kitty plays the

Chinese-American woman with deft body language that makes it hard

to believe that it's really her. In the end, everything works out

well for everyone. Sort of fun despite the undercurrent with the

extorters. Maybe I'm still recovering from The Splendor of Youth.

[29] 2.5 stars (39) 215 Mad, Mad, Mad Swords 09/10/69

oooooMad, Mad, Mad Swords, starring Tin Ching at his goofiest

(moreso than in Beauty Parade, even) and least malevolent (in

contrast to his roles in The First Sword and The Boxer from

Shantung), was not all that great, but not as miserable as some

would have it. Sammo Hung plays two parts. Veteran character

actor Fung Ngai (who played the fat bespectacled karateka in

Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury) appears with a three-sectional staff

which the choreographer doesn't know what to do with. Infamous

Shaw villain Chiang Nan (most memorable as the traitor in The

Iron Bodyguard) has the funniest scene: he is forced to fight Tin

Ching with a full bladder after having eaten eight bowls of

congee. Rascally Tin Ching purposely delayed their competition to

make sure the congee would do what it did. The best fight scene

has Shaw actor Paul Chang in a Zatoichi homage. The One-armed

Swordsman homage is not nearly as successful. Being a Cathay

film, the women hold sway over the men, and it is in ways that

you wouldn't see in a Shaw Brothers or Golden Harvest film. For

example, Tin Ching's betrothed controls the purse strings to his

dead master's fortune, and a subplot with a courtesan is played

out mostly from the woman's perspective. In the end, it's Tin

Ching's pompous, almost-bowlegged strut that makes for the most

indelible image: It's John Wayne by way of Popeye.

[30] 3.0 stars (31) 133 Father Takes a Bride 10/02/63

oooooFather Takes a Bride stars the same main three actors as in

Her Tender Heart -- the doe-eyed Lucilla Yu Ming, the fatherly

Wang Yin, and the tall, regal Wang Lai -- but in place of Zhang

Yang, we have Betty Loh Tih's brother Kelly Lai Chen. And as it

turns out, Lucilla and Kelly make a perfect couple: their looks

match each other handsomely, and they play off each convincingly

(unlike Kelly's match with Kitty Ting Hao in Dreams Come True).

The tone of this film is quite different from that of Her Tender

Heart. Two couples -- one being Lucilla and Kelly, the other

being Lucilla's father Wang Yin and Wang Lai -- are threatened by

jealousy on the part of Lucilla's two younger brothers, aged 8

and 9, who make a fuss about their dead mother and how marriage

by their father would disrespect her memory, while marriage by

their sister would leave them all alone in life. The way things

play out in this Eileen Chang scripted film is rather ingenious,

but until then, you fear for nearly everyone's happiness at one

point or another. I was surprised not to care all that much for

Lucilla's character, here. I preferred her work in Her Tender

Heart and in Sun, Moon and Star.

[31] 4.5 stars (37) 183 Darling Stay At Home 01/28/68

oooooI thought the 1968 color film Darling, Stay at Home, was

great. Betty Loh Tih plays a repressed, resourceful housewife, and

Zhang Yang plays her sexist husband who doesn't allow her to seek

gainful employment. She devises a scheme to trump her husband,

which she does in surprising and delightful ways, not unlike the

way in which Linda Lin Dai operated in Bachelors Beware, but what

stands out is the feminism and its contrast to the conservative

mores of the time. Betty essentially has two roles in this, the

only modern era vehicle she starred in at Cathay. Not having yet

seen The Love Eterne, the only other film I'd seen her in was the

Rarescope release Duel at the Supreme Gate, and I thought she was

great in that, so I was hoping that I'd like her here, too, even

though the genre and era were different, and I did. Zhang Yang's

smug arrogance is utilized exceptionally well for comedic effect

for once, and Tin Ching adds flavor to Zhang Yang's performance

with his more overt comedy. The plot is fairly simple, but plays

out in a highly entertaining manner. I laughed out loud at this

film moreso than with any other Cathay or Shaw Brothers comedy

I've seen. I enjoyed this immensely, and will be getting some Loh

Tih Shaw Brothers discs in order to see more of her.

[32] 3.5 stars (02) 025 My Kingdom for a Husband

oooooI knew that My Kingdom for a Husband was a Cantonese opera

set in the modern era, so I half-expected to be bored, but the

novelty of seeing a film with Cantonese opera instead of Huangmei

(Yellow Plum) Opera was intriguing. So, too, were the lead actors,

Cheung Ying, who played the sparkle-eyed lothario in The Splendor

of Youth, and Leung Sing-Bo, who played the Cantonese tailor in

The Greatest Civil War on Earth and the Cantonese restaurateur in

The Greatest Wedding on Earth. The two men are paired almost like

a Hollywood Golden Age comedy duo, with Cheung Ying as the straight

man and Leung Sing-Bo as a broadly delineated vaudevillian type.

The former seems almost like Dean Martin, with the latter somewhat

akin to Oliver Hardy or Red Skelton. It's ironic that I should have

viewed this film directly after having seen Darling, Stay at Home,

because that title describes this film, too, in many ways. While

Darling dealt with a housewife whose husband endeavors to keep her

at home rather than let her work, My Kingdom has a queen whose

husband The Prince Consort comes to resent having no autonomy once

married. Although the film is overly leisurely at first and is slow

slogging for the first hour, the second half picks up significantly

once most of the plot comes together, and the developments in the

last half hour are riveting. After his relatively one-note role in

The Splendor of Youth, it was surprising to see Cheung Ying display

such an emotional range in this film. Trivia: Cheung Ying appeared

in over 300 films from 1937 to 1988, and he directed the 1969 Shaw

Brothers film The Swordmates, as well as co-directed the 1949 film

Wind and Storm Over Alishan with Chang Cheh (Wind is the first film

that Chang Cheh ever co-directed; the first films he ever directed

on his own were Tiger Boy and The Magnificent Trio, both in 1966).

My Kingdom for a Husband is worth it if you've got the patience for

the first half. Leung Sing-Bo is particularly good in this.

[33] 4.0 stars (10) 063 Cinderella and Her Little Angels 12/31/59

oooooCinderella and Her Little Angels begins on a strange note in

a clothing shop, where two children's mannequins come to life and

sing a song about the lead character, a tailor played by Peter

Chen. There is a woman mannequin in the shop which he kisses

goodnight every evening, and his co-workers (Tin Ching among them)

know about it. What they don't know is that the mannequin is a

dead ringer for a girl he's sweet on, played by Linda Lin Dai, who

works in the orphanage that sews the shop's clothing. The plot

hinges on the foibles of Peter and Linda keeping the orphanage's

prim matron (Wang Li) in the dark about Linda's modeling for the

clothing shop's fashion shows, which Linda assents to in order to

get funding for renovating the orphanage, which is badly in need

of structural repairs. Lots of fun fashion is on view, and Linda's

character is not annoying like it was in Bachelor's Beware. I admit

to dreading this film because of not having liked Bachelor's Beware,

but Linda's character here is much different. Tin Ching's love

interest is played by Dolly So Fung, who I haven't seen in ages,

and she is really cute in glasses and pigtails, although she

doesn't have much of a part. The sewing room in the orphanage is

pretty much a sweatshop, and there is a disconcerting scene where

they sing a jaunty tune about how they work as fast as they can.

Peter Chen, who was married to Betty Loh Tih from 1962-1966 (which

made Kelly Lai Chen his brother-in-law), later re-teamed with Linda

Lin Dai in the 1963 Shaw Brothers film Love Parade. Cinderella and

Her Little Angels (the title refers to Linda's character and to the

youngest orphans in the orphanage; the title's literal translation

is "After the Cloud Clothes Are Colorful," which probably refers to

both the pall over the orphanage cast by the matron and by the

storm that assaults the orphanage near the end) is a predictable

but engaging film, which I enjoyed.

[NA] Les Belles (studio: Shaw Bros.) 02/25/1961

oooooLes Belles, from 1961, is a Shaw Brothers film, but it stars

Linda Lin Dai and Peter Chen Ho, and is said to be one of Shaws'

best musicals, so I figured I'd watch it after Cinderella and Her

Little Angels. The real reason I obtained this VCD is because of

Fanny Fan Lai being in it. Ever since I saw her bare backside

shower scene (yes, you see her fanny) and catfight with Lily Ho

in Angel with the Iron Fists (1967), I've been a Fanny Fan fan

(hoo boy), and have sought out anything she's in. Very few of her

appearances are on disc. Others would include Love Parade, The

Magnificent Trio, The Golden Buddha (featuring Jeanette Lin Cui's

only appearance in a Shaw Bros film), Summons to Death, and Diary

of a Lady-Killer. Anyways, Les Belles has Peter Chen as the

director and lead male dancer in a dance troupe, with Linda Lin

Dai as the talented newcomer who butts heads with him time and

again. The production numbers are indeed among the best I have

seen from Cathay and Shaw Bros, but the story was really lacking.

The main hook of the plot has Peter placing personal ads in the

newspaper with linda answering them, with neither knowing that

it's the other until the very end. Bleh. At least Fanny was fun

as Linda's roommate.

[NA] The Dancing Millionnairess (studio: Shaw Bros.) 02/12/1964

oooooI obtained 1964's The Dancing Millionnairess because it is

one of the only two films on disc (the other being the King Hu

film Sons of Good Earth) featuring the husband and wife team of

Peter Chen and Betty Loh Tih. It is a Shaw Brothers film, but it

turns out to have been directed by Tao Qin, aka Doe Chin, who

also directed Our Sister Hedy and the original Love Without End

(with Linda Lin Dai), both of which I liked. Then again, he also

directed Les Belles. Oh well. I found The Dancing Millionnairess

to be quite involving. It concerns a floundering dance troupe,

including King Hu in a comedic role as a set designer, and the

way they manage to involve an heiress in their company in a very

convoluted manner. Loh Tih goes from imperious to endearing, and

the film ends with a well-done, almost-20-minute extravanganza.

Peter Chen is usually pretty unflappable in everything I've seen

him in, but there are two scenes in this film where Loh Tih

psyches him out, causing him to get very agitated and evasive.

It's quite amusing, as well as delightfully squirm-inducing for

the audience. Doe Chin also directed the 1967 Lily Ho/Essie Lin

Chia/Ching Li Shaws vehicle, My Dreamboat, which I have on VCD but

haven't seen yet, and the 1963 Shaws film Love Parade, starring

Peter Chen and Linda Lin Dai, featuring King Hu and Fanny Fan Lai,

which I don't have. He also directed the sequel to Our Sister Hedy,

Wedding Bells for Hedy, which is not on disc, and Linda Lin Dai's

final film, the two-part The Blue and the Black, which is on disc.

[34] 3.5 stars (35) 154 Fairy, Ghost, Vixen 05/27/65

oooooFairy, Ghost, Vixen (1965) stars Tang Ching as a weak-willed

scholar who becomes romantically involved first with a fox vixen

spirit, then a ghost girl, and then a fairy -- at least it seemed

to be the case when I was watching the film. It is really a

trilogy of separate supernatural fables, but since all three star

Tang Ching playing almost the same character, it is easy to view

the three tales as installments in a hapless man's journey through

lack-of-self-discovery. After a slow start, the film becomes rather

engrossing, but there is a pall over the proceedings because of

the melancholy situations the ungrateful and self-involved scholar

creates for himself and his beloved in each story. I tend to feel

sorry for and identify with the ghost women in most of the asian

ghost stories I've seen, and this extends to the vixen and the

fairy here. Annette Chang Hui-Hsien, who played Julie Yeh Feng's

sister in It's Always Spring, and who played the lounge singer in

Spring-time Affairs, is especially fetching as the ghost, and Wang

Lai does a great job as her mother. Tang Ching stands out in my

memory for the especially impotent character (the husband) he

played in Deaf and Mute Heroine (1971), but he was considerably

more likable in the 1968 Shaws Brothers Cheng Pei-pei vehicle The

Jade Raksha, and in Vengeance is a Golden Blade (1969). I also

knew him from his suave, courageous pompadour-coifed roles in the

modern era Shaws films, Summons to Death (1967), Angel with the

Iron Fists (1967), and The Angel Strikes Again (1968), so I know

he has a fair range as an actor, but his weaselly portrayals, such

as that in Fairy, Ghost, Vixen make me feel like slapping him,

sometimes. In this film, the foxes' faces look more like those

of North American skunks than those of foxes, because they are

striped. I was not aware that asian foxes aren't all orange from

snout to tail. I suspect I will eventually be moved to watch this

film again, if only to revisit the sad love stories from the

perspective of the supernatural women. If and when I see this

film the next time, I will view Tang Ching as a catalyst moreso

than (a) discrete character(s).

[35] 4.5 stars (15) 077 Happily Ever After 06/16/60

oooooHappily Ever After has a woman masquerading as someone she's

not, like in Dreams Come True; and there is fiancee rivalry, like

in June Bride; and modeling for an agency figures in as a pretext

for plot development, like a Cinderella and Her Little Angels; but

I liked this film more than those others. Maybe it's because I'm

a sap for the lead, Lucilla You Min. The only time she's been

lovelier is in Sun, Moon and Star. Here, Lucilla has to pretend

to be commercial advertising artist Roy Chiao's fiancee when his

estranged wealthy father falls deathly ill and Roy's real fiancee

can't be located in time to visit the old man. Trouble ensues when

his father, who loathes Roy's golddigging real fiancee, develops

an instant liking for the unassuming, guileless Lucilla, and

regains his health. Keeping the old man happy while simultaneously

keeping him in the dark as to Lucilla's true identity makes up the

bulk of the film. The masquerade works much better here than it

did in Dreams Come True (which starred Kitty Ting Hao). Although I

liked Her Tender Heart (which starred Lucilla You Min) more because

it was a straight-ahead drama, I liked this Lucilla You Min vehicle

second-best, which means I prefer it to Father Takes a Bride. If

I had to choose between Devotion (starring Kitty Ting Hao) and

Happily Ever After, though, I would choose Devotion. Amazingly,

Devotion (04/21/60), Happily Ever After (06/16/60), and Dreams

Come True (08/27/60) were theatrically released within four months

of each other, and the great noirish Grace Chang weepie, Forever

Yours (04/07/60), predates Devotion by just two weeks!

[36] 3.0 stars (33) 139 A Story of Three Loves Pt. 1 02/12/64

oooooWatching the 1964 film A Story of Three Loves Pt. 1 was an

odd experience. It stars Zhao Lei (the lead actor in The First

Sword) as a rich student and kindhearted philanthropist of sorts who

takes to helping two poor women, a street performer (played by

Jeanette Lin Cui) and a teahouse songstress (played by Grace Chang)

get ahead. I just recently saw Zhao Lei as a skittish scholar in the

1960 Shaw Brothers Betty Loh Tih vehicle Enchanting Shadow. He seems

to always play mannered good guy roles. In this film, both Jeanette

and Grace are in love with him, and he gets engaged to Grace, much

to the chagrin of Jeanette. Complicating matters is a sophisticate,

who looks just like the poor Grace, who is also in love with Zhao

Lei. A further complication comes with the introduction of a barely

recognizable Roy Chiao as a lascivious general who is after the

poor Grace, whereupon the story starts to share elements with the

contemporaneous 1964 Shaw Brothers film The Warlord and the Actress,

wherein a general schemes to make a woman (played by Julie Yeh Feng)

his concubine. It is indeed fun to see Grace Chang play two roles,

but they are so diametrically opposed that the aristocratic character

that Grace plays hazards caricature. I was shocked by a scene where

the poor Grace shrieks in hysterics when she momentarily mistakenly

thinks that Zhao Lei has been untrue to her. It is not the sort of

scene I ever expected to see Grace Chang in.

[37] 4.0 stars (34) 140 A Story of Three Loves pt. 2 A 02/26/64

oooooIn comparison to the rather leisurely first installment, the

melodrama escalates exponentially in A Story of Three Loves Pt. 2.

Street performer Jeanette, who is indebted to Zhao Lei after he

saved her father's life by paying for him to be treated by Western

medicine in Pt. 1, infiltrates the general's mansion under the guise

of the poor Grace's maid in order to secretly help Zhao Lei, and is

forced to sublimate her love for Zhao Lei by helping the poor Grace.

So, too, does the aristocratic woman who looks like the poor Grace

sublimate her love for Zhao Lei by trying to help him despite

learning of his betrothal to the poor Grace and despite wanting to

marry Zhao Lei herself. Trapped by the general and forced to disavow

Zhao Lei, the poor Grace is eventually driven to the point of madness,

and her portrayal goes beyond the shrieking hysterics she displayed

in Pt. 1. Jeanette's role expands as she becomes the new focal point

of the general's attentions. I ultimately found this two-part film

more enjoyable than the two-part Sun, Moon and Star because I found

Zhao Lei's character easier to identify with than Zhang Yang's drippy,

clueless character in Sun, Moon and Star. Both two-parters are epic

love stories about three women in love with the same man, and both are

memorable, but Zhang Yang taints Sun, Moon and Star with his character.

I thought he did much the same to the ending of The Wild, Wild Rose,

actually. Anyways, the one-note performance Zhao Wei gave in the first

half of A Story of Three Loves gives way to a wider range of emotion

as things come to a boil, and he becomes much more engaging. Between

Tears And Smiles is Shaw Brothers' version of this two-part epic.

[38] 2.5 stars (24) 101 Education of Love 08/03/61

oooooWang Yin is a primary school teacher but is not teaching because

of an illness, so his daughter, Jeanette Lin Cui, who's only a high

school graduate, fills in for him. Her boyfriend, Kelly Lai Chen, is

interning for medical school and arranges for her father to see a

doctor. At first, Lin Cui doesn't like teaching, but it grows on her

after her father demonstrates that the students teach the teacher as

much as the reverse. Sammo Hung, under the name Zhu Yuanlong, plays an

underfed, skinny(!) student, and has a decent amount of screen time

throughout the picture in what is actually his film debut(!). Wang Yin

played Lin Cui's father in A Story of Three Loves, and played Lucilla

You Min's father in both Her Tender Heart and Father Takes a Bride. He

directed 41 films and acted in 63. He's a solid actor. I had seen Zhu

Mu, who plays Sammo's father, as the lead thug in Dreams Come True, as

the army commander in Sun, Moon and Star, and as the fur trapper Tiger

Zeng who wants to marry Julie Yeh Feng in the Shaw Brothers film The

Shepherd Girl. Lin Cui isn't one of my favorite Cathay actresses, and

this is not among my favorite Cathay films, but she is particularly

good in this. Maybe it's because the role is so atypical: she gets to

display a completely different set of emotions than she does in

virtually all her other films. Spunky, perky, and athletic are not

the adjectives that describe her here. Instead, conciliatory, tearful,

and empathetic are words that come to mind. The film is rather

schematic and preachy with regards to education, but some good

melodrama is to be had in the last half hour. The first copy of this

DVD I got would not play at all. The second was hard to cue up, and

stopped and jumped about 15 times during the first 30 minutes and

stopped repeatedly during the last 2 minutes. I had to get a VCD

copy of the film to view the last 2 minutes. Yep, I'm dedicated.

[39] 2.5 stars (16) 078 The Bedside Story 06/23/60

oooooThe Bedside Story is a strange film. While it has broad comedic

aspects, it's mostly the story of a crafty actress, played by Li Mei,

who seduces her star director, played by Kelly Lai Chen, into marrying

her despite the protestations of the director's newspaper reporter

brother, played by Zhang Yang. Zhang Yang tries to explain to his

lovestruck brother that his fiance is not in love with him and only

using him to further her career, but Kelly Lai Chen is smitten and

willfully deluding himself. Zhang Yang tells his secretary, Wang

Lai, who is in love with him, that he'll expose the actress's sordid

past if she doesn't do right by her brother. She threatens to leave

him if he does such a thing before Li Mei actually deserves it. This

is the only time I've ever seen Wang Li play a young woman instead of

some variety of matriarch, and the two-piece business dresses she

wears are very flattering. She's not really convincing as a youthful

woman, though; she is no Kitty Ting Hao, and no Lucilla You Min,

either. Anyways, Li Mei turns out to be an even more horrid wife than

Zhang Yang suspected: she lives in a room separate from Kelly Lai

Chen and parties night after night with her producer, played by Wu

Jia-Xiang (who usually plays sycophants in Shaw Brother films), who

is in love with her and still chasing her despite the fact that she

is married. Eventually, Zhang Yang gets wind of it, and he gives Li

Mei a list of ultimatums, threatening to ruin her with a newspaper

expose. I really like Li Mei, so I was uncomfortable watching this

film, because she mostly plays a self-centered jerk even worse than

Zhang Yang was in Sun, Moon and Star. While not nearly the tyrant that

Roy Chiao was in A Story of Three Loves, she is quite imperious and

makes life a living hell for the house servants and her husband with

her complete lack of empathy. In a way, The Bedside Story is like

Bachelors Beware turned inside out: instead of a chipper and outgoing

Linda Lin Dai manipulating a clueless Zhang Yang, we get a protective

Zhang Yang manipulating a self-serving Li Mei, who in turn manipulates

the clueless Kelly Lai Chen. I didn't like it when Zhang Yang's sister

treated Li Mei and her daughter like dirt in For Better, For Worse,

and I didn't like it when Li Mei treated her husband and servants like

dirt in The Bedside Story, either. Strangely, in this film, Kelly Lai

Chen is not the fey wet noodle he often plays, despite his being a

pushover for whatever his wife tells him to do, so when he finally

gets fired up and gets some gumption, it is entirely believable. Why

the film is named The Bedside Story, I don't know.

[40] 3.5 stars (12) 068 Sister Long Legs 02/06/1960 [2nd viewing]

oooooAfter having watched the entirety of Panorama's output of

Cathay discs, I returned to re-watch this film (my original review

is at [04]), thinking that I might have been unfair. As it turns out,

I liked it a lot more the second time, since I was more familiar with

the stars, bit players, genres, and genre conventions of the Cathay

studio. (I am now tempted to re-watch Bachelors Beware [20], which I

suspect I might have misjudged, as well.) Insurance salesman Liu

En-Jia and his wife Wang Lai are the working class parents of

schoolteacher Julie Yeh Feng and younger sister Jeanette Lin Cui.

Wang Lai runs into a rotund old school chum, Kao Tsiang, now

wealthy, who comes to visit. She invites Wang Lai's family to her fat

daughter's birthday party. Her husband is Cheung Kwong-Chiu, who

played the part of the magician father of the three woman leads in

Hong Kong Nocturne, and was also in the original Love without End

(1961). Kao Tsiang introduces millionaire's son Tin Ching to Julie,

but right away, Tin Ching takes a shine to Jeanette, instead. Kao

Tsiang wants her daughter to snag Tin Ching for a husband, though.

There's a funny bit when a short guy swing dances with Julie and has

to jump for the over-her-head moves. Roy Chiao, who works across the

street at a car repair shop, is also at the party, and to her mother

Wang Lai's dismay, he hits it off with Julie. Tin Ching's character's

last name is the same as that of Roy Chiao's, but instead of fixing

cars, Tin Ching raises dogs as a hobby. Twice, we see him imitate

dogs in Julie's presence, and it's jawdropping to see her not be

appalled. Kao Tsiang takes advantage of the two men's last names

being the same and purposely confuses Wang Lai, causing Wang Lai to

accidentally invite Roy Chiao to visit rather than Tin Ching,

because Kao Tsiang wants Tin Ching to spend time with her own

daughter rather than go to Wang Lai's house. Wang Lai, meanwhile,

wants Julie to marry Tin Ching, but she only has eyes for Roy Chiao.

And much as Jeanette Lin Cui has fun with Tin Ching, she makes a

play for Roy Chiao at one point. Everything reaches a crescendo at a

mountaintop picnic. I give this film one more half-star, now.

AT A GLANCE

[01] 4.0 stars (27) 111 It's Always Spring 02/21/62

[02] 5.0 stars (03) 028 Our Sister Hedy 11/14/57

[03] 5.0 stars (01) 017 Mambo Girl 03/06/57

[04] 3.0 stars (12) 068 Sister Long Legs 02/06/1960 [1st viewing]

[05] 5.0 stars (18) 087 The Wild, Wild Rose 10/04/60

[06] 3.5 stars (07) 050 Air Hostess 06/04/59

[07] 5.0 stars (06) 049 Her Tender Heart 05/21/59

[08] 3.0 stars (08) 052 Our Dream Car 07/09/59

[09] 2.5 stars (05) 044 Spring Song 02/14/59

[10] 4.5 stars (13) 073 Forever Yours 04/07/60

[11] 3.0 stars (11) 066 June Bride 01/27/60

[12] 4.0 stars (25) 107 Sun, Moon and Star (Part 1) 12/08/61

[13] 3.5 stars (26) 108 Sun, Moon and Star (Part 2) 12/30/61

[14] 4.0 stars (09) 055 For Better, For Worse 08/20/59

[15] 3.5 stars (21) 091 Death Traps 12/08/60

[16] 3.0 stars (19) 088 Between Tears and Laughter 11/10/60

[17] 2.5 stars (30) 130 Because of Her 07/31/63

[18] 1.5 stars (36) 181 The First Sword 12/28/67

[19] 2.5 stars (32) 138 The Magic Lamp 01/23/64

[20] 5.0 stars (14) 074 Devotion 04/21/60

[21] 3.0 stars (20) 089 Bachelors Beware 11/17/60

[22] 2.5 stars (38) 199 Spring Time Affairs 11/28/68

[23] 2.5 stars (23) 096 Beauty Parade 03/30/61

[24] 5.0 stars (22) 094 The Greatest Civil War on Earth 02/14/61

[25] 3.0 stars (29) 122 The Greatest Wedding on Earth 10/11/62

[26] 2.5 stars (28) 117 Ladies First 08/02/62

[27] 3.5 stars (04) 030 The Splendour of Youth 12/11/57

[28] 2.5 stars (17) 084 Dreams Come True 08/27/60

[29] 2.5 stars (39) 215 Mad, Mad, Mad Swords 09/10/69

[30] 3.0 stars (31) 133 Father Takes a Bride 10/02/63

[31] 4.5 stars (37) 183 Darling Stay At Home 01/28/68

[32] 3.5 stars (02) 025 My Kingdom for a Husband

[33] 4.0 stars (10) 063 Cinderella and Her Little Angels 12/31/59

[34] 3.5 stars (35) 154 Fairy, Ghost, Vixen 05/27/65

[35] 4.5 stars (15) 077 Happily Ever After 06/16/60

[36] 3.0 stars (33) 139 A Story of Three Loves Pt. 1 02/12/64

[37] 4.0 stars (34) 140 A Story of Three Loves pt. 2 02/26/64

[38] 2.5 stars (24) 101 Education of Love 08/03/61

[39] 2.5 stars (16) 078 The Bedside Story 06/23/60

[40] 3.5 stars (12) 068 Sister Long Legs 02/06/1960 [2nd viewing]

THE CREAM OF THE CROP

[01] 4.0 stars (27) 111 It's Always Spring 02/21/62

[02] 5.0 stars (03) 028 Our Sister Hedy 11/14/57

[03] 5.0 stars (01) 017 Mambo Girl 03/06/57

[05] 5.0 stars (18) 087 The Wild, Wild Rose 10/04/60

[07] 5.0 stars (06) 049 Her Tender Heart 05/21/59

[10] 4.5 stars (13) 073 Forever Yours 04/07/60

[12] 4.0 stars (25) 107 Sun, Moon and Star (Part 1) 12/08/61

[14] 4.0 stars (09) 055 For Better, For Worse 08/20/59

[20] 5.0 stars (14) 074 Devotion 04/21/60

[24] 5.0 stars (22) 094 The Greatest Civil War on Earth 02/14/61

[31] 4.5 stars (37) 183 Darling Stay At Home 01/28/68

[33] 4.0 stars (10) 063 Cinderella and Her Little Angels 12/31/59

[35] 4.5 stars (15) 077 Happily Ever After 06/16/60

[37] 4.0 stars (34) 140 A Story of Three Loves pt. 2 02/26/64

oooo http://www.brns.com/pages/cathayrevs.html has reviews of twenty

Cathay films, and at http://www.coffeecoffeeandmorecoffee.com/ there

are reviews of Because of Her, Death Traps, Forever Yours, The June

Bride, Mambo Girl, and Spring Song. Ten Cathay reviews can be found at

http://web.archive.org/web/20080529180021/http://www.illuminatedlantern.com/cinema/review/archives/cathaympgi.php

o

January 16, 2011

Great info. Thanks for sharing!

January 16, 2011

It's a shame the bulk of Cathay's martial output remains hidden away. There must be some gems. Though I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks The First Sword is pants.

January 18, 2011

Thanks for reviewing these. Hopefully they put out some of the better martial arts movies in the future. I agree with Markgway there MUST be some martial arts gems from Cathay.

January 25, 2011

Thanks for the very detailed post. You mentioned that "The June Bride" and "The Education of Love" DVDs appear to have mastering problems. Unfortunately, I think the "Fairy, Ghost, Vixen" DVD may have problems as well. My copy will not play past the 1h40m mark on my DVD player, but plays without any problems on my PC.

January 26, 2011

o

oooooSince Our Dream Car and Spring Song are both out-of-print on

Panorama DVD, and I have yet to obtain Spring Song on Panorama DVD,

I ordered a copy of Spring Song on Panorama DVD from an online

merchant, only to receive some sort of mainland Chinese disc of a

film called The Young Ones. The graphics on the DVD case reminded

me of the mainland Chinese versions of Air Hostess and and Mambo

Girl that are available from YesAsia, so I took a look at the

YesAsia pages for those DVDs, where it says that the publisher of

the DVDs is called Shenzhen Co., and that the discs are All Region

PAL DVDs, subtitled in English and simplified Chinese.

oooooThe images on The Young Ones DVD looked as if they were from

Spring Song, but I couldn't be sure without playing the disc. On

the back cover, the DVD is indicated as being in NTSC format,

unlike the two DVDs available via YesAsia, which makes me wonder

whether the YesAsia discs are actually NTSC as well.

oooooI popped The Young Ones DVD into my DVD player and when the

menu page appeared, it was for Spring Song, with the same layout

and imagery as on the Panorama discs. Note that the Hoker Records

DVDs I have of The Greatest Civil War on Earth and Sun, Moon and

Star do not have the same layout and imagery as Panorama discs.

For the duration of the film, a logo appears in the bottom right

corner of the screen. I assume it says Shenzhen Co., but I am

including a screen cap among the pictures attached below in case

anyone here can read Chinese and say for sure.

oooooAt first, I was irked that I had not been sent a Panorama

DVD but a Shenzhen DVD, but then there is the fact that many

Panorama DVDs have the strange property of not being able to be

cleaned with (distilled) water, but must be cleaned with rubbing

alcohol, which is annoying since rubbing alcohol tends to contain

additives which stay on the disc after cleaning. For some reason,

when I try to clean many Panorama discs with water, they develop a

highly disconcerting foggy, smeared coating over them, so I only

clean them with alcohol, now.

oooooI'd like to be able to add scans of The Young Ones Shenzhen

Co. DVD to the Hong Kong Movie Database, but I have never been

able to do so, so I'm going to attach the pics below in this post

because the Photobucket links won't last forever.

oooooIn the screen capture immediately below, the actresses and

their corresponding character names are, from left to right:

Jeanette Lin Tsui as Sun Jingni, Grace Chang as Li Qingping,

Chan Wan as Lin Ruyu, and Sam Wan as Wang Ailian.

oooooThe listing of Chinese DVDs shown below is from the folded

paper that came inside the Shenzhen Co. The Young Ones DVD. I am

linking to GIF images instead of JPG images because Photobucket

automatically decreases the resolution of the JPGs stored on their

site. Hopefully, some enterprising soul might someday translate

the listing that appears on this sheet of paper.

o

January 27, 2011

o

oooooWell, what do you know; I am now able to add photos and reviews

to the Hong Kong Movie Database. Maybe it's because I messaged the

site's administrator?

oooooAnyways, since I don't know if this is a fluke or something

that will last, I added the The Young Ones pics, and then proceeded

to add -- with some tweaking -- all the Cathay commentaries that I

posted lower in this thread. Yay!

oooooI notice that I am able to edit images at the Hong Kong Movie

Database now, but am not allowed to edit reviews -- even my own.

Maybe that will change and maybe not. At this point, beggars can't

be choosers.

oooooNext, I'm going to put the Our Dream Car DVD I have to good

use by getting screen caps of all those great cheongsams Grace Chang

wears in that film. And believe it or not, that's why I tried so

hard to obtain this out-of-print DVD: so I could put screen caps of

Grace's cheongsams from this film online!

o

February 1, 2011

Thanks for sharing this great information. This is really an outstanding thread.

April 24, 2011

oooooFor about a year, I had been searching the internet for a

copy of the 1991 book Cathay -- 55 Years of Cinema by Kay Tong

Lim. A little over a month ago, I found one. It was at a store

called Clique, located in the main Cathay Pictures building, The

Cathay, at 2 Handy Road in Singapore. They were not accepting

online orders from the USA, but via e-mail correspondence, they

proved very helpful in setting up a PayPal account in order to

facilitate ordering.

Cathay -- 55 Years of Cinema

oohttp://www.cliquestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=61

oooooClique originally had two sealed copies of Cathay -- 55

Years of Cinema (until I bought one). Now they have one.

oooooWhile searching through Clique's web pages, I stumbled

across something called We're 75: 1935-2010, which is aka the

Cathay 75th Anniversary Collector's DVD Set. This is a

commemorative set released only in Singapore, with no Hong Kong

counterpart. Clique now has 23 copies of this set for sale. They

had 24 before I bought one.

oooooBoth items (but especially the first one) are pricey. I had

to sell an original page of Kamandi comic art by Jack Kirby on

eBAY to be able to afford the two of them.

Cathay 75th Anniversary Collector's DVD Set

oohttp://www.cliquestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=8_14&products_id=783

oooooThis set is comprised of six films, three of which are

Chinese in Mandarin, and three of which are Singaporean in Malay.

Each of the two three-film batches have their own DVD-height

digipak which houses one disc in the front and two in tandem in

the back.

oooooAmong the Chinese films are two that had already been

released by Panorama, Darling Stay at Home (1968), starring Betty

Loh Tih, and Her Tender Heart (1959), starring Lucilla You Ming,

but the third, Mad About Music (1963), starring Yi Guang (aka

Maria Ye Kwong) and Julie Yeh Feng, appears here on DVD for the

very first time -- which makes it the 40th Cathay film (after the

39 Panorama discs) to make it to DVD.

oooooLike all the Panorama discs, the images are cropped /

pan & scan in the case of those films originally released in

widescreen. Because of Her (1963), starring Ge Lan (aka Grace

Chang), is supposedly the first CathayScope film. Since Mad About

Music is from 1963, it is possible that it was not originally

widescreen, and hence not cropped / pan & scan. Judging by the

MP&GI logo at the start of the film, Mad About Music was not

released in CathayScope.

oooooI had never heard of Maria Ye Kwong before. She appeared in

a total of only eleven films.

oooooAt one point, Li Mei was slated to star in Mad About Music.

According to the Hong Kong Film Archive, she got sick, and was

replaced by Julie Yeh Feng, whereupon the film which had

originally been scheduled to be in black and white, became a

color musical, instead.

oooooI have watched the film and was rather crestfallen to find

that none of the musical numbers are subitled in English. They

are subtitled in Chinese, but not in English. The dialog is

subtitled, but since this a musical with a dozen numbers, it is a

disappointment not to be able to know what the lyrics to the

songs are. (I have the VCD of the 1961 Shaw Brothers film Les

Belles, starring Linda Lin Dai, and none of the musical numbers

therein are subtitled in English nor Chinese.) And I suspect that

Mad About Music was shot in CathayScope, despite the presence of

the non-scope MP&GI logo that appears at the start of the film.

oooooVisit http://www.hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=3908&display_set=eng

or go to http://www.hkmdb.com/db/search/noauto/index.mhtml?display_set=eng

and type in Mad About Music for my review.

oooooAmong the Singaporean films is the highly sought after cult

movie, Sumpah Pontianak (1958), aka Blood of Pontianak, aka Blood

of the Vampire, which appears subtitled in English on disc for

the very first time. It had appeared on unsubtitled Malaysian VCD

in the past. The other two Singaporean films in the set are a

comedy from 1958 named Satay, and a drama from 1962 named Dang

Anom.

oooooHere are some links re Sumpah Pontianak:

SUMPAH PONTIANAK

oohttp://inkpot.com/film/sumpahpontianak.html

Sumpah Pontianak

oohttp://www.braineater.com/pontianak/sumpah.html

Malay ghost myths entry at Wikipedia

oohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_ghost_myths

Pontianak (folklore) entry at Wikipedia

oohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontianak_%28folklore%29

Article by Singapore Paranormal Investigators about pontianaks

oohttp://www.spi.com.sg/spi/spi_files/pontianak/

o

November 10, 2014

THE CREAM OF THE CROP
[01] 4.0 stars (27) 111 It's Always Spring 02/21/62
[02] 5.0 stars (03) 028 Our Sister Hedy 11/14/57
[03] 5.0 stars (01) 017 Mambo Girl 03/06/57
[05] 5.0 stars (18) 087 The Wild, Wild Rose 10/04/60
[07] 5.0 stars (06) 049 Her Tender Heart 05/21/59
[10] 4.5 stars (13) 073 Forever Yours 04/07/60
[12] 4.0 stars (25) 107 Sun, Moon and Star (Part 1) 12/08/61
[14] 4.0 stars (09) 055 For Better, For Worse 08/20/59
[20] 5.0 stars (14) 074 Devotion 04/21/60
[24] 5.0 stars (22) 094 The Greatest Civil War on Earth 02/14/61
[31] 4.5 stars (37) 183 Darling Stay At Home 01/28/68
[33] 4.0 stars (10) 063 Cinderella and Her Little Angels 12/31/59
[35] 4.5 stars (15) 077 Happily Ever After 06/16/60
[37] 4.0 stars (34) 140 A Story of Three Loves pt. 2 02/26/64

Wow, thanks for all the great info! I'll have to check out some of these Cathay films when I get a chance, as the films The Wild, Wild Rose and The Greatest Civil War on Earth sound especially interesting.

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