Director:
Li Han-hsiang
Year: 1977
Rating: 5.5
Li Han-hsiang was one of the premier Hong Kong
directors for the Shaw Brothers in the early 1960s. He created these lavish
historical dramas sometimes of the huangmei diao (Opera) genre, sometimes
just straight epic dramas about real life Chinese royalty. They are visually
stunning with great period detail, costumes and interior decorations. He
was a director that was entirely comfortable creating his vision of China
of the past in the studio setting and most of his films are shot within that
studio environment. He had total control there. His films were enormously
popular but perhaps not feeling well enough rewarded or feeling hedged in
by the Shaws, in 1964 he left the Shaws and Hong Kong and set up his own
film studio in Taiwan called General Motion Picture Company. In Taiwan he
directed nearly twenty films - very few which are available on dvds as far
as I know. So I have no idea what sort of films he was making - I doubt if
he had the budget of those earlier Shaw films but I don't know. I have only
one of them on vcd that I should watch some time. But at any rate, his company
went bankrupt and in 1972 he was welcomed back to the Mothership, the Shaw
Brothers.
He stayed with Shaw for another eleven years directing a number of films
of all kinds - generally period films - but none of them rose to the heights
of his Golden Period. But one of the genres that he entered with relish is
called Feng Yue or erotic films. He made a bunch of these with titles that
made clear what they were about - Crazy Sex, Illicit Desire, Sinful Confessions,
Sensual Pleasure - while at the same time making mainstream films such as
The Empress Dowager and three of the Emperor Chien Lung films. The Feng Yue
films are best described as ribald tales with nudity and morality lessons.
To get to the morale, you have to sit through a fair amount of simulated
sex, groans, moans and bare breasts. Not really a hardship but not exactly
a thrill anymore.
At the time nudity was just entering Hong film and with no Internet, this
was the most thrills a man could get on his own. Most of his erotic films
still have period settings with an eye for great detail and often in one
film there would be two to three stories. Which enabled him to bring on a
few of the erotic actresses of the time. Back then and still quite honestly
today, actresses were divided into those willing to disrobe and show their
finer parts and those who were not. A few of the former became quite notorious
and very popular. And there are five of them in this film.
Within this one there are two stories - the morale of the first being I guess
don't play with fire and the second don't kill someone's mother. The first
one occurs back 300 to 400 years ago and a Buddhist monastery is headed by
a very pious monk (Yueh Hua - the beggar in Come Drink with Me) who seems
beyond earthly desires. The Magistrate comes to determine why the monk has
not come to his home to pay tribute. The monk shows him no respect and the
Magistrate decides to get even. He tells one of the women working at a brothel
that she will be freed if she can seduce him. This is Shirley Yu or the fire
in this story, one of those iconic erotic actress of the time. She pretends
to be sick and in need of shelter on a stormy night and is taken in. The
younger monks are soon walking around more fully erect if you get my meaning.
The Monk shall we say finds enlightenment.
In the second and longer story that takes place in the early part of the
20th century, two generations of women - a mother and then her daughter are
forced into prostitution to pay off debts. The mother is played by Chen Ping,
another famous feng yue actress but who spread her talents way beyond only
being an erotic actress as she was in a number of mainstream films and a
few classic revenge films - Big Bad Sis, Vengeful Beauty and The Kiss of
Death. The daughter when she grows up is portrayed by the legendary Siu Yam-Yam
better known in the West as Yum Yum Shaw. In the film she gets to sell her
"virginity" or "Lighting the Candle" a few times - the specialty of the house.
Also appearing in this but staying clothed are Hu Chin with her signatory
mole and Tanny Tien-ni. It is rather a depressing story and one scene of
the female brothel owner (Wang Lai) curing a venereal disease with molten
something is rather horrible. Lots of other Shaw familiar faces here - Tin
Ching who used to be a leading man at Cathay many years before is a teacher
who rapes the daughter, the evil husband of the brothel owner is Chan Shen,
who in real life was married to Shirley Yu while Tanny Tien was married to
Yueh Hua - and a bunch of others in very small roles. An ok film - the second
one was a bit long in the tooth and having a third film instead would have
been a plus.
