Ho Meng-Hua (1929-2009): Rest in Peace

I recently learned that Ho Meng-hua passed away last month. Ho is best known in the West as the director of The Mighty Peking Man (1977) — a gonzo Hong Kong King Kong — but he was also one of Shaw Brothers' most versatile filmmakers.

In 1958, Ho was signed up by the studio when Run Run Shaw saw a preview of his directorial debut, The Wild Girl (not released until 1960). Made under the auspices of Yan Jun's MP&GI-funded production company Guotai (Cathay), the movie was a Republican-era comedy starring Kitty Ting Hao. Ho's first film at Shaws was An Appointment after Dark (1958), a tragic romance starring Lucilla Yu Ming and Chao Lei; it was followed by Red Lantern (1958), an adaptation of a Shaoxing opera starring Chung Ching and Chao Lei. In 1959, he directed the murder mystery Enchanted Melody, Fanny Fan's first Mandarin film. Throughout the early 60s, he made mostly contemporary dramas, comedies, and a few thrillers, starring the likes of Pat Ting Hung, Betty Loh Tih, Grace Ting Ning, and Margaret Tu Chuan.

Then in 1965, Ho Meng-hua was recruited to helm Shaw's four-film adaptation of the epic fantasy tale Journey to the West: released as The Monkey Goes West (1966), Princess Iron Fan (1966), Cave of the Silken Web (1967), and The Land of Many Perfumes (1968). As Shaw's wuxia revival kicked into high gear, Ho continued to roll with the times and started making swordplay flicks — including Cheng Pei-pei's last Shaw film, The Lady Hermit (1971). During the 70s, he adapted to the studio's new focus on exploitation fare, with such films as The Kiss of Death (1973), Black Magic (1975), Oily Maniac (1976), and The Psychopath (1978). In 1980, Ho finally left Shaw Brothers and retired shortly thereafter.

Ho Meng-hua always referred to himself deprecatingly as a commercial director, able to crank out whatever the Shaw studio wanted of him. But if you watch his sublime melodrama Susanna (1967), which won the Best Film award at the 14th Asian Film Festival, you will see that he was no mere hack. In a 2003 interview with Frederic Ambroisine, he said that he took one year to shoot the film. "I was supposed to direct four movies per year for Shaw Brothers. So I owed them. I tried to shoot more movies to have less debt, but they kept paying me. I couldn’t quit Shaw Brothers."

While he is sometimes maligned as a second-rate director who just got the job done, Susanna is evidence that Ho Meng-hua's career is due for reevaluation, especially his unavailable early work. More than any of his other films, Susanna reveals Ho's untapped genius — which unfortunately seemed unable to thrive in a bottom-line studio like Shaw Brothers.

Here's a scene showing Ho's sensitive direction. Li Ching plays a spoiled girl who discovers she has terminal brain cancer and tries to make up for her selfish ways. (Allyson Chang Yen plays her stepsister and Diana Chang Chung-wen plays her mother.)



Further Reading
Tribute to Ho Meng-hua by Frederic Ambroisine