From the eBay Archive: Li Lihua Caught Kissing

In a recent post about Li Lihua's brief foray into Hollywood with the film China Doll (1958), I featured an American newspaper interview, where she was quoted as saying: "I have 63 pictures to my credit... and haven't been kissed in any one of them. In China things are different."

Dev Yang commented that Li Lihua had in fact kissed seven years earlier in The Fiery Phoenix (1951). Maybe she just made up an excuse to get out of kissing "onion breath" Victor Mature, or maybe it was just publicity spin covering up the fact that the depiction of interracial kissing on the silver screen was still taboo in the United States (where anti-miscegenation laws were still in effect in many states of the union).

In any event, this back cover from the program for The Fiery Phoenix (1951) is undeniable proof that in China, when it comes to kissing, things are not so different.


Li Lihua kissing leading man Liu Qiong