If you have the fortitude and backbone to
watch a Huangmei Diao or Chinese Opera film, this is a fairly enjoyable one.
Though some spoken dialogue is interspersed among the music, it is basically
97 minutes of singing. Much of it to my untrained ears sounded similar but
they tell the story. After the enormous success of The Love Eterne, Shaw
rushed out this film in the same year and again starred Ivy Ling Po (who
does her own singing) as a male. They tried getting her co-star from The
Love Eterne, but apparently Betty Loh Ti turned them down, somewhat annoyed
that Ivy was getting most of the attention. If you only see one Huangmei
in your life, it should be The Love Eterne - for historical purposes if nothing
else. Trying to measure its popularity is nearly impossible. In the book
The Shaw Screen, a writer gives this one little credit but then what do I
know, I enjoyed it. I am easy. Pretty girls, pretty costumes, decent music
and a good story of love no matter what.
It is based very loosely on a Chinese folktale
from over 2,600 years ago, The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. It was selected
as one of China's four great folktales along with Lady of the White Snake,
Lady Meng Jiang who cried so hard for her dead husband that part of the Great
Wall collapsed revealing his bones and The Butterfly Lovers that I think
most of us are familiar with and which The Love Eterne was based on. In the
folktale seven female fairies who live in heaven come to earth to see what
it is like and they take a bath. A young poor cowherd is told by his ox that
if he steals the clothes of the Seventh Sister she would marry him. He does,
she does, They are very happy and have two children. But when the Gods hear
about it, they are furious. Fairies and humans don't mix. She is forced to
go back and he follows her to heaven. The Gods then created a long river
to separate them - the Milky Way. On the 7th day of the 7th month, they are
allowed to see one another. On the 7th day of the 7th month in the
Lunar calendar, Valentine's is celebrated. Ok, I thought some might be interested
in that. I love folklore.
This film doesn't follow it exactly. Seven
fairies are in heaven doing what fairies usually do - singing and dancing
together. Of the seven actresses for six of them this was either their debut
or their second film after The Love Eterne. The Shaw Brothers were giving
them a look. The main one is Fang Ying who had a nice though short career
and then years later became an art director for films - Naked Killer, The
Iceman Cometh among many others. Two of the others also had good careers
with Shaw - Violet Pan and Shirley Wong. The Seventh Sister (Fang Ying) is
bored with heaven. All we do is count the clouds she complains. They all
decide to take a peek at earth though this is against the rules. She spots
a lone man walking down a country road. This is Tong Yong (Ivy Ling Po) and
the 7th Maiden is told that he is going into indentured servitude for three
years because he sold himself to a merchant to pay for his father's burial.
A filial son she says and decides to marry him.
She sneaks down to earth and with the help
of the Earth God pesters Tong - in a lovely series of songs - till he agrees
to marry her. Fang Ying is adorable and rather than walk she just glides.
In the next section the owner tells Tong he doesn't want to pay for her food
and she bets him that she can weave a huge amount of silk if he will reduce
Tong's sentence to 100 days. He gladly agrees not knowing that she is a fairy
and has six fairy sisters. Eventually of course, the Gods come looking to
take her back to heaven. She tells him, I haven't been quite square with
you Tong. I am a fairy from heaven and my father the Jade Emperor says he
will kill you if I don't go back. And oh, I am pregnant. Tong being very
cool goes, ahhhh ok. I love you no matter what you are. And she is damn cute.
After The Love Eterne, Li Han-hsiang left
Shaw Brothers to produce his own films in Taiwan. He was their go-to guy
for the Chinese Operas, so this film gets credited with three directors -
Yan Jun, Chen Yun-hsin and Ho Meng-hua. I have no idea how they split their
duties up. Many of the operas I have seen end tragically, but this is lighter,
simpler and sweeter.
