Queen of Underworld
Director: Sherman Wong
Year: 1991
Rating: 6.0
If you thought Sandra
Ng’s turn as a career prostitute in “Golden Chicken” was unique, think again.
Back in 1991 there was a film that also followed the life of a woman from
being a young girl first getting into the hooking business through her middle
aged years as a Mamasan. After watching this film I can’t believe Amy Yip
didn’t receive the Best Actress Award for 1991 – instead they gave it to
another Yip, Cecilia, who won it for the film “A Thing Called Love”. I’ve
never seen “A Thing Called Love” (has anyone?) and I am sure Cecilia was
fine but did she have to portray a woman going through tough times and still
surviving over a twenty year period? Amy digs so deeply into this role that
at one point she actually puts on glasses to make herself look older. Now
that is dedication to the craft that should have been recognized.
Admittedly, she never really looks a day older during the film, a wrinkle
never adorns her pooky face, a gray hair never takes nest and her legendary
chest never seems to meet up with gravity, but she wears those glasses with
a spunky gleam in her eyes that shouts out – by God this will show them that
I am an actress. Not only does she begin wearing glasses as she gets older
– worse – she sleeps with Shing Fui-on because he seemingly is the only man
who wants her. Again this kind of dedication should be recognized. Of course,
in the same year, she was to have a truly classic scene with Shing in “Blue
Jean Monster”. In fact 1991 must have been an exhausting and bruising year
for the Yipster as she also appeared in “Sex and Zen”, “Robotrix” and “The
Great Pretenders” among a number of other films. This was the apex of her
career as her films from 1992 to her retirement in 1994 were an undistinguished
lot. In “Queen of Underworld” we get nearly 100% Amy as opposed to her often
fleeting but memorable cameos in so many of her films. In all semi-seriousness
she is actually fairly decent here and eminently watchable.
As a young woman with pigtails, Amy sells chicken buns to customers in a
restaurant, but they have a preference for her bigger buns that she is not
yet willing to sell. She calls these lascivious men “creepers” while they
tag her with the not very clever but rather accurate nickname, “Big Tits”.
One day she meets up with a small time pimp who promises to take her away
from this chicken bun life style and soon she is happily making use of her
sizable assets and meeting many fine men for short periods of time. Life is
a bit squalid as she has to share her pimp’s room with him and his assorted
followers, but when you are in love what’s the matter with a small crowd of
onlookers. When she gets a little bun in her oven though, her pimp lover sees
his future return on asset ratio diminishing and decides that a punch in
her stomach will take care of that financial problem. Instead though Amy turns
to a corrupt cop, Blackie Ko, who after making sure that she measures up
beats up the pimp and takes her and soon her little girl in. This is just
the first step though as she slowly becomes . . . the Queen of the Underworld!
Soon she is managing a number of girls at a hostess bar and imparting her
wisdom to them. She takes a rookie under her wing and after a little training
from the Yipster, Pauline Chan is ready to go out on her own into the scary
world of Cat. III films and is soon a star. Nothing goes easy though as Blackie
still has a need to fool around and on one occasion when Amy’s little girl
interrupts his randy activities he punts her for a field goal and though the
only damage that is apparent is that when she grows up to be Gigi Lai she
has an inflated lower lip that you could use as a life preserver, the Yipster
doesn’t take kindly to having her daughter treated as a football and takes
a souvenir from Blackie that he dearly misses.
No problem for Amy though - she just finds another protector in Paul
Chun Pui and soon develops a network of men from a gweilo policeman to the
big boss (with a cameo from Ray Lui) who keep her safe. As the years roll
by though Gigi grows up to resent her mom and her protectors grow old and
powerless and soon she is in trouble with nowhere to turn to except a couple
old friends that she taught the tricks of the trade to years before. The film
is mildly trashy as you might expect, but goes as much for the melodrama as
it does for any exploitation – which comes primarily in the form of Pauline
Chan. Even Amy keeps her cleavage displays to a disappointing minimum here
as if she is in fear of catching a chest cold – still this is one of Amy Yip’s
few films that used her generally in a non-exploitive manner – whether that’s
a good or bad thing I won’t judge – but I enjoyed watching her stretch her
thespian talents for a change.
