Au Kar-wai and Fanny Fan as pioneering female action heroes
According to available data, the next film starring Fanny to be released after The Pink Murder (1959) was not Les Belles — which, although completed, was being held for a 1961 Chinese New Year's release — but Oriole, the Heroine (also known as Miss Nightingale, the Flying Fencer), a Cantonese crime thriller starring Pearl Au Kar-wai as the titular heroine and Fanny as the trusty sidekick.
Although the release date is given as June 19, 1960, the film must have been made some time before Fanny joined Shaw's Mandarin division the previous year. The back cover of a program (printed in Singapore) for Oriole, the Heroine advertises Patricia Lam Fung's 1957 debut, The Fairy Sleeves; furthermore, the older Shaws and Sons logo appears in the program rather than the newer Shaw Brothers logo. This seems to indicate that Oriole was released — in Singapore at least — sometime in 1957-58. This article from the July, 1958 issue of Universal Screen offers further evidence of an earlier release date.
The character of Oriole (or Wong Ang) the Flying Heroine first appeared as the protagonist of a popular series of pulp novels in 1940s Shanghai. Written by Siu Ping, an intelligence worker during the Sino-Japanese War, these stories depicted the social injustice and inequities of the era and gave the people a hero who fought on their behalf. In 1950s Hong Kong, the Wong Ang novels remained as popular as ever.
Previously, I had assumed that the first film adaptation of Wong Ang was How Oriole the Heroine Solved the Case of the Three Dead Bodies (1959), which featured reigning martial-arts queen Yu So Chow in the title role. Yu played the crime-fighting heroine seven more times in the next few years. Her final Oriole film was The Blonde Hair Monster (1962), which also starred a 15-year-old Connie Chan as the sidekick Heung At. Naturally, I thought that Shaw Brothers was just cashing in on the popularity of these films with their own version. But the evidence seems to indicate that it was in fact Shaws that first brought the beloved pulp hero to the silver screen.
Yu So Chow's Wong Ang films are rightfully acknowledged as the precursor to "Jane Bond" films of the late 60s, but it is indeed unfortunate that the Shaw Brothers' Oriole, the Heroine — very likely the first film adaptation — is in danger of being forgotten.
Obviously, as a fan of Miss Fanny Fan, I would love to see one of her pre-bombshell films, especially one where she plays a fighting heroine. Further stoking my interest in Shaws' Oriole is a tasty bit of information from the Hong Kong Film Archive's online catalog: leading lady Au Kar-wai was allegedly coached in sparring for three months by none other than Lau Cham — real-life kung fu master, pioneering martial-arts choreographer, and father of Lau Kar-leung!
Stay tuned for more about Pearl Au Kar-wai and for my ongoing exploration of Fanny Fan's colorful career...
Chiang Feng, Au Kar-wai, and Fanny Fan in Oriole, the Heroine
(As always, I welcome further information and correction of errors on my part.)
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