If Bollywood isn't your cup of tea, I don't know if your reaction to a Hong
Kong Huangmei Diao aka Chinese Opera will be much better. But if you ever
want to give it a go, this delightful film may be a good place to start.
Unlike many of the Huangmai Diao films that are set among the upper or royal
class with ornate sets, this is set among the common folks who sing nearly
all the dialogue to one another. It is also not a tragedy as so many are
but is one big fat delicious romance. But mainly the music is terrific -
Chinese Opera yes but very much influenced by folk music and a little by
melodic Mandarin pop. There is very little of the high-pitched singing that
can break glass and keep Western audiences away in droves.
The music is composed by Zhou Lan-ping who also composed the music for Love
Eterne, perhaps the most popular Huangmei Diao in film history. He had been
in the KMT army and upon their loss he moved to Taiwan where he began composing
for films. In the early 1960s he left for Hong Kong and joined Shaw. The
lyricist in the film is Yi Fan, the wife of the director Yuan Qiu-feng. The
DVD translates them and they are quite wonderful throughout - but particularly
in a song competition where the contestants taunt and insult each other.
Though they are not doing the singing - like Bollywood they have specialists
do the singing (with the exception of Ivy Ling-po who sings her own roles)
- Margaret Tu-chuan and Kiu Chong are excellent as the young couple in love.
Among the other female singers i.e. chorus are Lily Ho (in her debut) and
Lisa Chiao Chiao in her third film.
It begins with a terrific singing duel between the female tea pickers and
the fishermen. "Tea Mountain has the most folk songs. The girls sing like
a lark". Responded to by the fishermen in their small wooden boats "You sing
to the mountains, I sing to the water". Yu Lan (Margaret) is the leader of
the women and Chun Yang (Kiu Chong) of the fishermen. The two fight and flirt
continuously - in song - till they finally declare their love. A relative
(Ko Hsiao-pao) of the Queen spots Yu Lan playing with the other girls and
decides she will be his wife. She says yes - if you can beat me in an antiphonal
singing contest. This means singing alternatively and trying to best what
the person sang before - both musically but also with wit. Very clever. Lovely
usage of sets and outside location shooting in Taiwan.
