It is Romeo and Juliet on the Chao Phraya. That
is in Thailand where this Shaw Brother's film was shot. Also, where we just
passed midnight into the new year. Happy New Year from Bangkok. My exciting
New Year's Eve was watching a movie and Lisa of Blackpink perform on TV.
It gets insane here with the zillions of drunk tourists and Thais tossing
firecrackers. I am too old for that shit. I just wish I had come into the
New Year with a better film. This was quite awful. Absolutely dull as a door
knocker. The best part for me was the nice tour of Bangkok that they went
on 60 years ago. It looked quite wonderful. No traffic. The canals had not
been paved over yet. I actually passed through Bangkok with my family on
the way to Penang in 1968. It was just enough time to see some fabulous temples
and put an itch in me to come back someday.
As bad as the film is - will get to that
in a bit - the director and the scriptwriter became an important part of
the Shaw machinery in the years to come. Neither had done much up to this
point. The director is Lo Wei who had just directed a few films for Shaw's
rival, Cathay. and this was his first film for Shaw. Beginning the following
year, he was to begin his fun series of spy and adventure films with The
Golden Buddha and then the year after, Angel with the Iron Fists. As much
criticism as he gets about Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, he made some good modern
films for Shaw. Then there is the scriptwriter. You would never guess from
the film how big he was to become, but he too had come over from Cathay where
he was a successful writer of melodramas for them. This one is also a melodrama
like a ripe mango. But he would soon to go on to change the face of Hong
Kong action by directing Tiger Boy and then One-Armed Swordsman. Chang Cheh
of course. He does throw in a bit of action near the end, but it has none
of his trademark male bonding over blood and death.
Peng Yuzhen (Lee Ting) and Qi Youdi (Paul
Chang Chung) are college sweethearts. But their families are bitter enemies.
In an opening scene that isn't clear till later, the Peng father (Lo Wei)
kidnaps a woman from the other side of the river - the Qi Village and then
blows up the bridge. Some 20-years later they all still hate one another.
McCoy's and the Hatfields. When the parents find out their son and
daughter are in love they forbid it - in Peng's case he locks up his daughter
with no clothes which was a surprise to see in 1965. Lots of melodrama to
come as secrets spill out like sour milk. Perhaps showing her naked posterior
wasn't a great idea as Lee Ting's career went nowhere but Paul Chang Chung
became one of the Shaw's handsome leading men in a lengthy career. The film
moves along with the speed of a traffic jam. It wasn't until the hour mark
before anything happens. But Bangkok looked lovely.
