Don't let
the title fool you into expecting a nice fluffy romance with a happy ending
in this Shaw Brothers film. That is certainly what I was expecting. Instead
it is a tinderbox of charged emotions that are like a car wreck. It is two
hours in length but it takes that long to set it up and then pile on the
constantly increasing misery of broken hearts, a broken family and tragedy.
It is like a pre-Taiwanese Weepie but it hits the trifecta. Keeping all this
going with the overlapping stories is director Doe Ching and it could not
be in better hands. He is a terrifically effecting director who doesn't get
much recognition these days because he stuck with sentimental dramas, light
comedies and tragedy. His work with Cathay is stellar, in particular the
wonderful Our Sister Hedy and then after moving over to Shaw he directed
Les Belles - a light musical comedy, Love Without End, one of Linda Lin Dai's
great tragedies, Love Parade, another musical comedy and then The Blue and
the Black - Linda Lin Dai's final film. This doesn't rank up with Love Without
End or The Blue and the Black but then it doesn't have Linda Lin Dai. But
not a bad cast either.
It has six of the up and coming Shaw stars
- three females and three males - all sort of at cross purposes in the film.
On the female side there is the dewy Lily Ho looking so ravishing that you
expect the camera to break down. At times when she is sad - which is often
- it feels like her face is melting. With her is Ching Li in her second film
and well on her way to a fine career as the pretty girl next door type. Ching
Miao was her father. And filling it out was Essie Lin Chia with her lean
angular bone structure who could as easily play villainess or good girl.
On the male side there is Chin Han who had become a star with Lady General
Hua Mulan and married Ivy Ling-po; Yang Fang - this film made him a star;
and Chin Feng. Most of the firepower is on the female side but Doe Ching
was to some degree considered a female director. For Lily Ho fans of which
there are many, she doesn't carry a gun or wield a sword but she is terrific
in this. All acting. Edward Lam in The Shaw Screen calls this her masterpiece.
The film is based on a novel from female
writer Chiung Yao, a very popular Taiwanese author. Her works have been adapted
in over 100 films or TV shows. Her first book was The Window which became
Brigitte Lin's debut film that made her a star. I think a number of her books
were converted into Weepies. Shaw adapted three of her books right around
this same time - this film, The Purple Shell and Mist Over Dream Lake. She
knew how to punch an emotional hole in her audience. There had to be a lot
of sniffling in the audience.
I won't dwell on the story but the power
of the film is that Doe Chin builds up a nice house full of friendship and
characters you care about and then takes a wrecking ball to it. Lily Ho and
Yang Fang have been friends since childhood and it was assumed they would
marry. Both of them did as well. At a Christmas party that Yang is throwing
with his sister Essie the new year seems bright. His friend Chin Han shows
up who has been away for two years and he emits masculinity like a powder
keg - especially compared to Yang's more urban effete, work in a bank type.
Also there are Ching Li who is Lily's best friend and Chin Feng who has a
crush on Essie. They go off into the country to hunt and all is well as they
sing a happy song around the campfire and dance with joy (there are actually
four musical numbers). But you sense they will never be this happy together
again - that life, sadness and tragedy is just a step away. That friendships
are fragile.
The book takes place over ten years - with
the film it is hard to tell - but life brings both joy and sorrow. Here Doe
just uses a sledge hammer of sorrow near the end. I just want to mention
that the father of Essie and Yang is played by Yan Jun, one of the great
characters in Hong Kong and before that Chinese films. He was a director,
actor, producer, formed a film studio at one point and was nicknamed the
"Leading man of a thousand faces". He was married to the great actress, Li
Li-hua. He has a big role in this film and is the ballast that keeps it grounded.
