Teddy Girls
Director: Patrick Lung Kong
Year: 1969
Rating: 7.5
Don't get the impression that Teddy Girls are soft
and cuddly as the name might lead one to believe. It is derived from the
Teddy Boys, a 1950's British term to describe a sub-culture of rebellious
young men. In Hong Kong Teddy Girls (and boys) was used to describe girls
in trouble, delinquents, rebels without a cause and pissed at the adult world.
This was Patrick Lung Kong's follow-up to his hit The Window in 1968 and
was also a hit and has become something of an iconic film in the Cantonese
film industry. Two films were actually produced that year dealing with troubled
youth - this one and The Joys and Sorrows of Youth directed by Chor Yuen,
who was also a top Cantonese director before moving to the Shaw Brothers
and directing some of their greatest wuxia films in the 1970's.
Teddy Girls is fairly entertaining, but at the same time Lung Kong is trying
to pass along a social message of how a bad environment can produce a bad
child. There is also perhaps a less direct message that men are generally
scum and for women to beware of them. Not a lot of good role models here other
than one guy. I have enjoyed most of these 1960 Cantonese films that I have
found with subs and a few without. They are the poor cousins to their neighbors
Shaw and Cathay producing Mandarin films, but they have a certain verve and
fun factor with some great actresses like Josephine Siao and Connie Chan.
But unlike those companies, these Cantonese film prints were not maintained,
were often lost and most of the dvds I have seen are very low quality. Such
a shame. The problem was that these were often small independent movie companies
that all went belly up at some point and the prints with them.
In this one Josephine Siao with her film name conveniently Josephine comes
from an upper class family in one of those cool 60's houses with sunken rooms
and pointless stairs who has a problem with her mother who she finds canoodling
with another man (played by a sleazy Lung Kong) while her husband is literally
on his death bed. Then mom skips Josephine's birthday party whereupon Josephine
destroys one of the two cakes she demolishes in the film. Cruelty to cakes.
She then goes out dancing with a girl friend where they put their groovy synchronized
moves on display. Three creeps try to make a move on them and Josephine conks
them over the head with a bottle - and ends up being sent to a reformatory
school for young girls.
A very nice one mind you run by the only good man in the film - played by
Kenneth Tsang - who was a star already at this point and would continue to
be one for many years. There is no exploitation angle here - no lesbian warders,
no nude shower scenes (though there is a shower scene), the only fight is
a food fight and the girls get along fine. Josephine doesn't fit in right
away until they put a canvass bag over her head and bang her up a little bit
- but when she doesn't squeal on them and shows a good jump shot she becomes
part of the team. A couple of the other girls were very well known teenage
actresses as well - Nancy Sit Ka-yin with her recognizable mole on her forehead
that she never got rid of - and Lydia Shum who as usual was the comedy relief
and already quite plump.
Things don't stay rosy though as outside issues cause four of the girls
to put together the Great Escape - one of them to take care of her mother
but the other three to get revenge. And they do. But there is a lesson here
as well not to take the law in your own hands - though as Josephine rightly
says the law is only for the poor. An enjoyable film that switches gears on
us a few times and it is nice to see some of these actors when they were young.
They all had good careers and you can also spot loads of other character actors
who you will see in lots of films in the 70's and 80's. One who I did not
recognize till I saw the credits was the actress who played Josephine's mom
- it is Teresa Ha Ping who was in hundreds of films later on - often as an
older mother - but here she is still fairly young and quite the looker!
The film is up on YouTube.
