Black Forest
Director: Yuan Qiu-feng
Year: 1964
Rating: 6.0
This is a fairly obscure Shaw Brothers film for
a few reasons – it is a musical, set in a logging camp of all things but
mainly because it was one of the Shaw films that Celestial never got around
to releasing – and though I found it charming one can understand why this
wasn’t higher up on their list of priorities. So I purchased this on the
Grey Market – not something I like to do but at this point it seems fairly
certain that Celestial isn’t going to go back and re-start their Shaw films.
They aren’t even making any effort to distribute DVDs of the films they have
released before – thus many of the DVDs are out of print and you can only
get them second-hand through Ebay or another secondary market often for very
inflated prices. It is very sad cinematically. Not up there with all the
shit going on in the world and in Hong Kong but still you hate seeing this.
Now Celestial does have a youtube page where they are starting to put up
some of these films which is quite wonderful but the last time I checked
they had no English subs and it is not likely to be films they never released.
What is strange is that these Gray Market DVDs are pretty good quality –
not like those old vhs tapes we once depended on to see Shaw Brother films
– with subs. No idea where they came from but very odd. Last time home I
just put in an order for a bunch of them because these films should be seen
and noted. I could not find anything on the Internet about this film at all
other than a page on IMDB with no summary and of course a cast and crew listing
on HKMDB.
Now I am not sure if this turned out to be a tragedy or a romantically happy
ending because as is the danger with Grey Market dvds it conked out on me
with just a few minutes to go! Just as possible impending doom was ahead!
And I can’t find out how it ends because no one has seen the film! But until
then it was rather a charmingly bucolic film filled with music, some villainy,
fisticuffs, drama and romance. All set in the Black Forest of Taiwan. I hadn’t
been expecting a musical – I hadn’t been expecting anything really – and
so when a group of loggers out in the forest spot a pretty girl and break
into song and she replies in song, it was a delightful surprise. The music
in this is very nice – a hybrid of sorts – a watered down form of Chinese
opera with pop and folk music intermingled with a few great melodies. HKMDB
attributes the music to Chou Lan-Ping, a prolific and popular Taiwanese composer
with many film scores to his credit and Eddie H.Wang Chi-Ren, who also has
hundreds of film music credited to him. In any case whichever one of them
wrote the music, the songs are lyrical and lovely. I have no idea who the
singers are.
Paul Chang Chung comes to get work in a small logging town and it sets off
fireworks for the ladies of the area – a few of my favorite Shaw actresses.
Running a small café and occasionally singing is Fanny Fan looking
much too glamorous and sexy for this ragtag town full of rough loggers; a
simple tribe mountain girl who was the vision that the loggers sang to played
by the kitty-kat looking Margaret Tu Chuan and the daughter of the owner
of the logging business played by Lisa Chiao Chiao of One Armed Swordsman
fame. They all have their eyes on Chang Chun who really is the only decent
looking man around – and he can climb trees faster than any one and you know
what that means. Complications arise when Chang Chun beats up a man
who was harassing Tu Chuan and he turns out to be the spoiled son of the
owner and Chang Chun’s direct boss (Tang Ching) turns out to be the film
baddie which you know immediately because he uses a cigarette holder and
love hits a few bumps along the way. But does love find a way? I wish I knew.
It is really the music that makes this a worthwhile visit – a number of songs
in the first half that slows down in the second – with a few large set pieces
and a few ballads. Very lovely and melodic. The film won The Best Dance Choreography
Award in 1964 but truthfully the dancing is minimum. The Shepard won for
Best Music. 1964 was in the middle of the great Huangmei Diao films from
the Shaw Brothers – but though this film has some Chinese Opera influences
it is a bit too soft and popish to qualify. It is also has a contemporary
setting where nearly all the Huangmei Diao films are set in the far past.
(images stolen from HKMDB)
