Poison Rose
Director: Pan Lei
Rating: 6.0
Year: 1966
Aka - Poisonous Rose
Some casting against type decisions give this Shaw Brothers film a bit of
a boost in an otherwise average crime movie. The femme fatale is played by
Julie Yeh Feng, not a role that she was accustomed to. Quite the opposite
in fact. She had been one of the cache of very popular female stars at Cathay
(MPGI) from the late 1950s through the mid 60's. She had starred in a few
bona fide classics of the time - Our Sister Hedy, Wedding Bells for Hedy,
Air Hostess, Sister Long Legs and the two part Sun, Moon and Star. For reasons
I am not sure of - perhaps she saw the writing on the wall for Cathay - but
in 1964 she jumped over to Shaw Brothers and appeared in The Shepard Girl.
She was only to appear in nine films for Shaw before she retired in 1969.
None of them were as popular as those she did at Cathay - Shaw just didn't
seem to find a successful niche for her - most of Shaw's female actresses
were young, cute, chic and innocent. Julie did not fit that mold - she was
of full figure, looked like a woman as opposed to a starlet and seemed to
have experience built into her expressions - you would never call her cute
as you would many of the other Shaw actresses.
On the other side of the ledger of this film the good guy is played by Wang
Hsieh, who played as many villains in martial arts films as any Shaw player.
To be the target of her affections just feels wrong. She is pretty convincing
as a woman of few morals - as she tells him I am just a body that men want
as she ditches men like expired milk bottles. On the other hand, their falling
in love is as likely as a Republican voting for Obamacare during a pandemic.
His was a role you would normally expect Paul Chang Chung to take on but
perhaps he was off making The Golden Buddha. It is well-produced and directed
with competence by Pan Lei whose film The Purple Shell I watched a few weeks
ago. This is more fun than that one was but it could have used a lighter
touch as it swivels between a proto-Bond film, romance and a crime film.
Chiang Feng (Julie Yeh Feng) runs a nightclub in Taiwan and sings as well
(Julie Yeh Feng was a recording artist as well though I have my doubts if
this was her voice). The nightclub is also a nest of vipers - drug dealers
and killers and she is right in the middle of it. In fact, right at the beginning
her drummer who is an undercover cop is assassinated as she sings. The police
bring back Kang (Wang Hsieh) from vacation and convince him to take on the
case by showing him a few photos of Chiang. He goes undercover as a wealth
Chinese Canadian businessman and she immediately wants to bed him. Some guys
have all the luck. He is equipped with all the latest snazzy devices - a
cigarette lighter that records (reel to reel!), a device he puts on his door
that lets him know people are coming, a communication device - but mainly
it is his sex appeal that he has going for him. Chiang Feng is so talented
that at one point she uses to code to tell her men where the drugs are in
a bowling ball. How does she do this right under his nose - by scoring the
number of pins to form a numbered code. That was kind of cool - my code would
have to be something like 2232. Unfortunately, the film was working towards
a big reveal at the end that turned out to make absolutely no sense at all.
This is another Shaw film that never was restored by Celestial but is out
there on the gray market.
