Forever Diamonds
Director: Kuei Chih-hung
Year: 1968
Rating: 6.0
This caper-comedy-romance
from the Shaw Brothers is as light as a passing thought but has its charms
in the form of its two leads and some enjoyable location shooting in Hong
Kong and Singapore. Peter Chen and Pat Ting Hung have a comfortable chemistry
with one another and their slow burn romance is as innocent, cheerful and
inevitable as a bright new day. Peter Chen had been a very popular light
comedienne leading man for both Cathay and Shaw Brothers since Mambo Girl
in 1957. He was called the "Holy Hand of Comedy" with his gentle, genial
and often passive performances that were basically a blank offset to his
much stronger female co-star. The Hong Kong film industry at this time had
a female centric focus but that was beginning to change with the growing
popularity of action films. Actors like Chen were on their last legs - and
sadly for him he was to pass away from cancer in two years at the age of
40. His lovely co-star here Pat Ting Hung rides over Chen like a dazed man
in rush hour traffic.
Zhi-hua (Pat Ting Hung) pulls off a slick
and clever con in Hong Kong to steal a diamond ring and earrings worth a
substantial amount from the jeweler (Wu Chia-Hsiang, who directs this as
well) and flies back to her home in Singapore along with her cohort and younger
brother played by Wu Ma. On the plane she literally bumps into Zhi-Xian (Chen)
and later at customs slips her booty into his briefcase in order to avoid
paying taxes. Much of the remainder of the film is a comical romp of her
trying to find him and steal back the diamonds while he falls in love with
her. There is nothing here that is particularly hilarious but it is constantly
low key amusing and the repartee between the two leads is quick and witty.
Ting-hung is very appealing in this and given lots of room to be both elegant
and playful.
Chen is one of those Hong Kong characters
of the time - wealthy, languorous, living in a large house in Singapore with
his servants at his bidding but with no discernible way of earning a living
- he just has money from somewhere. He is so wealthy in fact that he can
wear Bermuda shorts and long black socks without being mocked! Pat's character
is more interesting and her ability to quickly spin lies is quite cute though
in real life you might think she is crazy. In the film also as Chen's girlfriend
is Elsie Tu Tieh, who only made a few films but has an eerie resemblance
to Linda Lin Dai. And a popular singer of the time, Tang Shao Ping, is the
singer in the nightclub. This like a few of the other Shaw films I have watched
of late had no official release from Celestial.
