The Singing Escort
Director: Inoue Umetsugu
Year: 1969
Rating: 6.0
A few months ago I picked up a number of gray market
Shaw Brothers films. Not something I really like doing but Celestial, who
owns the rights to these films, have pretty much given up on them. They didn't
sell nearly as well as expected and at some point they stopped issuing new
releases and have let many others simply not be restocked and they are currently
out of print with Celestial seemingly not likely to take them up again. It
is too bad some organization or wealthy movie lover doesn't step in and do
so. This is history. A cultural foundation of Hong Kong.
At any rate, I really like their films for the most part - it always amazes
me when I look back and realize that this great film industry was making
all these wonderful films in the 1960s and 70's and I and most of the world
outside of HK and other Chinese communities were totally unaware of it. Big
musicals, martial arts, horror, romances, spy movies, Chinese opera and crime
movies all being made and hardly any of us knew it. So over the past bunch
of years I have been slowly watching as many as I could find and the gray
market was part of the answer. This one was apparently released on vcd but
is out of print - but this is apparently up on YouTube on the Celestial Channel
but with no subs. But you can still listen to the music.
Of which there is oodles. I just finished watching Summer Holiday today with
Cliff Richard and this film was co-incidentally very much in the same frolicking
mood. Four young men from Hong Kong in a band go out on a tour with the intent
of mainly chasing women and they break into song constantly. It is fun, it
is corny, it is colorful, it has plenty of attractive women and it looks
great. The songs were composed by Joseph Koo, one of the truly great composers
of Hong Kong film with some 165 credits. I won't say the songs are great
- light and pleasant for the most part with some good staging and very good
singers dubbing for the two main actors - Roman Tam and Margaret Lee.
It is directed by the Japanese import, Inoue Umetsugu. He was on a bit of
a roll with Hong Kong Nocturne, The Brain Stealers and Hong Kong Rhapsody.
This musical is not nearly as ambitious as Nocturne or Rhapsody - simpler
plot, less flash, lesser known actors - but it is a nice addition to his
work in Hong Kong. And he gets to film much of it in Japan! The group led
by Ke Ren (Lin Chong) are invited to go to Hakone, Japan and perform at a
hotel - and the band's manager gives them the additional task of finding
and bringing his daughter home. Hakone is famous for its view of Mount Fuji
and its hot baths. And clearly lots of girls running around in bikinis. Great
advertising for this place. Lin Chong was half Japanese and half Chinese
(from Taiwan) and he was able to establish careers in Hong Kong, Japan and
Taiwan.
They can't find her but they find plenty of other women - Betty Ting Pei,
Shirley Wong, Catherine Go Ling, Cheung Ma-lai and Chiu Sam-Yin - all of
them who immediately fall in love with Ke Ren and literally try dragging
him into their beds. He is like catnip and they are all purring with their
claws out. He doesn't seem to understand the law of lead singers - you get
laid a lot. Crazy guy resists. He is another example that was very prevalent
in Hong Kong musicals and other films as well at the time - the unmasculine
man that must have been the ideal for women at the time - because this film
is clearly aimed at a female audience. He is very irritating - totally unforceful,
a spine of a jelly fish, easily manipulated, unable to say what he wants
to say - a complete dweeb - but he is being chased by five beautiful woman.
Only in the movies. There is a touch of drama thrown in for movie sake but
no doubt how it will all work out. Not great but I enjoyed it for just its
frivolous nature.
