Diana Chang: Flaming Doll

Movie flyer courtesy of HKMDB

Da jia hao! I just stumbled on the following compilation of scenes from Diana Chang's 1959 movie Flaming Doll (噴火女郎) — aka The Blazing Charmer aka She Sets My Heart on Fire — and I couldn't in good conscience keep it selfishly to myself. If you're only familiar with Diana from the Shaw films released by Celestial, then you are in for a real surprise. Just press play and see for yourself why she was called "The Most Beautiful Creature in Free China". Warning: Diana Chang is extremely hot and may cause spontaneous eyeball combustion.



P.S. There are lots more Chinese movie clips — some quite rare — at the hosting site.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Shaw star Pat Ting Hung on the cover of The Young Companion (Feb. 1958)

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Best wishes for a happy, healthy, and prosperous Year of the Rabbit! I mentioned before that I had some unfinished blog business to wrap up before I finally call it quits. And so, later this month you can look forward to some vinyl delight from Singapore songstress Zhuang Xue Fang and a post about one of Anna May Wong's lost films. In the meantime, why don't you check out the latest episode of Lucky Cat's always entertaining radio podcast or the ear-opening new installment at Antique Shanghai Pop Music devoted to "The Gentleman Singers of Shanghai". See you again soon!

That's All Folks — Zai Jian!

From the 1968 Cathay film Song of Our Family (extant but not available on DVD)

It's not without teary eyes that I announce the end of this blog. The past two and a half years have been full of discovery and gratification. But it's time for me to move on to other domains.

I'd like to give a big thanks to all of my friends and readers. Your comments and messages definitely kept me going during my moments of fatigue.

I have several unfinished posts that I'm determined to complete before I totally exit the Web, so keep an eye out for them sometime in the coming months of 2011.

Best wishes to all of you for a fruitful new year — whatever that might be!

Now let me bid adieu with a lilting island tune by Chang Loo from the 1956 film Who Isn't Romantic, directed by the late Wong Tin Lam and starring Soft Film favorita Chung Ching and veteran actor Kenneth Tsang in one of his first roles.

"Hu-La-La-Yi" ((LISTEN))

Hong Kong Fashionistas: The Singers

I couldn't resist these two stylish young ladies, whose photos are currently going for auction on eBay right now.


The first is Lee Bo Ying (李寶瑩), a Cantonese opera singer who made some 40 films between 1954 and 1965. She was dubbed "Little Fong Yim Fun" (小芳艷芬) after renowned "Queen of Cantonese Opera" Fong Yim Fun. This YouTube clip shows Lee singing "Sorrows of the Autumn Boudoir" from her film debut, It's Fun Getting Together (1954).


And this is Fong Tsin Ying (方靜音), who also had a diminutive nickname: "Little Chang Loo" (小張露). Like Chang Loo, Fong was known for her vivacious singing and stage presence. Sadly, her life was cut short in 1959 by a deadly traffic accident. Check out her fabulous version of Georgia Gibb's 1955 hit "Kiss Me Another".

Missing Shaw Films Found in Creative's ZiiEagle Movie Box

FOUND: Poison Rose with Julie Yeh Feng

Earlier this year I was bemoaning the fact that there were many titles from Celestial Picture's acquisition of the Shaw Brothers film library that still remained unavailable on DVD. Well, imagine my excitement when I discovered today (via the ever reliable Roast Pork Sliced from a Rusty Cleaver) that all 15 of the missing films I had mentioned — and many more — are now available in HD format, preloaded on a digital player.

Singapore multimedia company Creative has released the ZiiEagle Movie Box (天鹰宝盒), which contains a "complete" (I'll explain the quotation marks later) collection of 668 Shaw Brothers films, among which are a good many that never made it to DVD. I haven't yet done a complete count of the previously unreleased titles (although it's definitely not "around 200" as cited in this article). What I can tell you is that there are a good two dozen that I'd love to see, such as Poison Rose (1966), pictured above. Conspicuously absent from the collection, however, is Operation Lipstick (1967) and The Brain-Stealers (1968), two spy thrillers by Inoue Umetsugu starring, respectively, Cheng Pei-pei and Lily Ho. (Is that because there are plans to release those titles on DVD?)

The ZiiEagle is priced at S$1,070 (US$813) but is currently selling on promotion for S$888 (US$675). I'm not going to lie — that's a lot of dough. But considering how much I've spent on Shaw DVDs over the past eight years, I'd exchange in a flash all of my DVDs for this handsome little box. It's a moot point for me, however, since the ZiiEagle cannot be ordered outside of Singapore. Nonetheless, I'm quite excited about the arrival of this product, because it gives me hope that I may yet see these "no longer missing" (in Singapore, at least) Shaw films.

Of course, there still remain the truly missing titles: Shaw's black-and-white films (melodramas and comedies mostly) from the late 50s and early 60s and the entirety of the studio's Cantonese productions. Speaking of which, next month the Hong Kong Film Archive will be hosting a rare screening of Sweet Girl in Terror (1958), starring the "Jewel of Shaw", Patricia Lam Fung. This seminal movie is just one of the many treasures you won't find in the ZiiEagle Movie Box.

Still, if Santa could smuggle a ZiiEagle out of Singapore for me, it would make this Shaw fan *very* happy.

Let's Go Lin Dai! Spring Is in the Air (1954)

There is one song inextricably associated with Lin Dai — played so often that you either weep with sympathy or grimace in pain — and that song is Carrie Ku Mei's evergreen hit "Love without End" from the 1961 movie of the same name. Carrie wasn't the only singer who provided the vocals for Lin Dai in her films. Tsin Ting famously sang for Linda in the huang mei opera films Diau Charn (1958) and The Kingdom and the Beauty (1959).

It may come as a surprise then, as it did to me a few years ago, that Lin Dai was herself a singer of great note, if not great skill, and was a popular Pathé recording artist during the 1950s. However, as my buddy Dev Yang has written on his blog The Golden Age of Chinese Language Cinema, although Linda's singing lacks skill and sophistication, there is a genuine sincerity that is quite endearing.

Linda did not sing the songs in her debut film, Singing under the Moon (1953), however, in an odd turn of events, she ended up recording them for Pathé. The albums were a bit hit. In fact, Linda's version of the song "The Hot Blazing Sun" broke record sales set by renowned professional singers such as Yao Lee and Chang Loo.

Keen to continue Linda's success as a songstress, her mentor and lover Yan Jun made sure to include songs in the subsequent films they made together. Her second movie Humiliation for Sale (released in Singapore in 1954 but not in Hong Kong until 1958) included three songs. And her third, Spring Is in the Air (1954), incorporated the plot device of students preparing for a musical. It was a device that would be recycled in her later films, such as Merry-Go-Round (1956), a color extravaganza shot in Japan that includes a whopping ten songs and fantasy musical sequences with the all-girl Shochiku Revue.

While Spring Is in the Air is apparently unavailable (not even on YouTube), we can at least still hum along with the songs from the film, such as this delightful number, "Lovely Springtime". ((LISTEN))

The innocent Lin Dai we hear in this song would eventually lose her voice during her intensive commodification at Shaw Brothers — as they strove to create the ultimate and perfect movie queen.

Call me unsophisticated, but I'll take the thin-voiced Lin Dai of Spring Is in the Air over the ventriloquized Lin Dai of Love without End any day of the week!

* A very special thanks to Gilbert Jong for providing the above image from the movie booklet for Spring Is in the Air. Check out his fabulous collection of Lin Dai photos at his Flickr stream Enjoy Yourself Tonight.

References

• The Age of Shanghainese Pops (2001) by Wong Kee Chee
• "The Legend and the Beauty: Exhibition on Lin Dai" by Tong Kim-hung, Hong Kong Film Archive Newsletter, Issue 50 (November 2009)

Let's Go Lin Dai! The Queen and Her Mambo Girl

Here's a cheeky photo of Linda and Grace Chang courtesy of Oldflames (who happens to be a big Lin Dai fan). Linda looks like she's playing big sister, but in fact she was one and a half years younger than Grace. Cheeky, indeed!

Don't forget that Lin Dai week continues at Glenn's blog A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed with his reviews of Love Without End (1961) and Madam White Snake (1962).

Let's Go Lin Dai! Singing under the Moon (1953)

Four months after her suicide on July 17, 1964, Shaw Brothers released Beyond the Great Wall, Lin Dai's final collaboration with director Li Han-hsiang. Production on the film had actually begun as early as 1960 (see the February issue of Southern Screen) and by the end of the year an advertising poster had even appeared on the back of Southern Screen (November), but because of interruptions from other Shaw productions, Beyond the Great Wall took a long time to complete and wasn't publicly shown until November 1964. By that time, Linda was dead and Li had already left Shaw to establish his own film company in Taiwan. It was eleven years earlier that the both of them had made their respective debuts as actress and director with Singing under the Moon (1953).

In 1951 Linda — just 16 years old — was discovered and offered a contract by Yuen Yang-an, co-founder of the progressive film company Great Wall. Unfortunately, she soon found herself in the midst of the political divide afflicting Hong Kong's movie industry. When it became known that Linda's father had been a big player in the recently defeated Nationalist government, she was blacklisted by Great Wall's communist faction. Although she was already estranged from her father (Linda's parents had divorced when she was a child), she was compelled to write a confession denouncing him. Even so, the studio's directors were still afraid to offer her a role in their films. When Linda subsequently refused to renew her contract, the hardliners threatened her with a large debt, citing the money already spent on her wardrobe and publicity photographs. She protested by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Linda was discovered in time, and ironically her attempted suicide might have helped catapult her to stardom. Her name was splashed all over the papers and magazines, alerting the public and the government to the revolutionary activism breeding in Hong Kong's film studios.

As a result of this incident, nearly a dozen leftist film workers were expelled from the colony in January 1952 and Linda was released from her obligation to the studio, as was fellow Great Wall star Yan Jun, who had recently begun an affair with her.

Yan Jun was determined to make Linda a star, and when he joined the Yung Hwa film company later that year he insisted on bringing her with him. Their first collaboration — and Linda's screen debut — was Singing under the Moon (1953), an adaptation of Shen Congwen's novel Border Town, a tragic coming-of-age story about an orphaned teenage girl and her elderly grandfather. Linda stars as the main character Cui Cui and Yan Jun plays dual roles as the grandfather and the younger of two brothers who both fall in love with her.

Although Yan Jun was ostensibly the director of the film, the novice screenwriter Li Han-hsiang, who had been hired as deputy director, ended up directing the film because Yan was so busy in front of the camera. In this way, Singing under the Moon also became Li's debut. The film proved to be a huge success and launched the career of one of Hong Kong's greatest actresses as well as one of its greatest directors.

Although Singing under the Moon is cited as no longer available by the Hong Kong Film Archive in the notes for their 2009 retrospective (The Legend & The Beauty — The Films of Lin Dai), clips from the film have miraculously shown up on YouTube, affording us a rare glimpse of the humble beginnings of Hong Kong's movie queen. Linda's performance in the scene below shows that her popularity was due not only to her natural charm but also to Chinese audiences' perennial love for the sassy girl-next-door type. Hopefully we will one day be able to see the entire film in a manner befitting its landmark status.



References

• An Age of Idealism: Great Wall & Feng Huang Days (2001) by Hong Kong Film Archive
• The Age of Shanghainese Pops (2001) by Wong Kee Chee
• Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: The Twentieth Century (2003) by Lily Xiao Hong Lee
• Li Han-hsiang, Storyteller (2007) by Hong Kong Film Archive

Let's Go Lin Dai! Fisherman's Daughter on a Motorbike

Here's un petit apéritif before I publish my post about Lin Dai's first film, Singing under the Moon (1953). I found this unique magazine cover while searching through my eBay archive for Lin Dai materials. This issue appeared on newsstands shortly before Linda made her silver screen debut. Very cool, don't you think? Not quite what you'd expect, especially during the beginning of her career, a period of which she is usually remembered as a pig-tailed village lass not a short-haired urban tomboy. It just goes to show that the legend of Lin Dai that's been passed down to us is an incomplete picture, even more so when we consider that the first half of her movie output is currently unavailable on home video. It's my hope that this week's exploration of Lin Dai's early films will broaden the perception of modern fans about Hong Kong's beloved movie queen.

Meanwhile, Glenn over at A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed has just posted his review of Beyond the Great Wall (1964).

Let's Go Lin Dai!

 Lin Dai and Soo Fung showing off for International Screen (October 1956)

I can't think of a more perfect picture to announce that starting tomorrow my blog buddy Glenn (A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed) and I will be celebrating the films of Hong Kong movie queen Lin Dai.

Glenn will review Beyond the Great Wall (1960/64), Love without End (1961), Madam White Snake (1962), The Love Parade (1963), and The Last Woman of Shang (1964) — all thankfully available on DVD. As for me, I'll be blogging about some of her early films that are either lost or languishing in home video limbo.

To bring you up to speed, check out Glenn's previous Lin Dai reviews: Diau Charn (1958), which garnered Linda her second Best Actress award at the 5th Asian Film Festival; Les Belles (1961), for which she received — not without some controversy — her third Best Actress award; and The Lotus Lamp (1965), posthumously completed with a stand-in and released a year after her suicide.

Whether you adore her or consider her overrated, Lin Dai is unquestionably a great actress and one of the top icons of Chinese cinema.

Lin Dai: A Tale of Two Covers

There's nothing out of the ordinary about Lin Dai being featured on the cover of two different Chinese movie magazines during the same month. After all, she was the biggest star of her time. But her simultaneous appearance in December 1957 as cover girl for both Shaw and Cathay highlights the war over talent waged between the rival studios.

Lin Dai sits comfortably for the inaugural issue of Shaw's new magazine

Lin Dai became an instant star with her 1953 debut, Singing under the Moon. Her popularity continued the following year with Spring Is in the Air. Both films were hits for Yonghua Studio but couldn't save the debt-ridden company from closure in 1955. Lin Dai subsequently signed a three-year contract with Shaw and Sons for three films a year. However, the contract failed to include an exclusivity clause. This enabled her to enter a secret agreement with Cathay chief Loke Wan Tho. He also offered her three films a year but at a higher pay. When Shaw found out, they immediately matched Cathay's rate. Lin Dai suddenly became Hong Kong's highest-paid movie star.

Superstar Lin Dai strikes a pose for Cathay's International Screen

Lin Dai's consecutive Best Actress wins at the Asian Film Festival — in 1957 for Cathay's Golden Lotus and in 1958 for Shaw's Diau Charn — consolidated her position as movie queen. She continued to make films for both studios up until 1960, after which she worked exclusively for Shaw Brothers until her sudden death in 1964. For more than 10 years, Lin Dai commanded the box office and ruled the silver screen. She is justifiably remembered today as one of Chinese cinema's brightest stars.

References
Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: The Twentieth Century (2003)

Larry and Trudy Leung: Cantonese Capers

"Cantonese Capers" — that's how the comedy song-and-dance duo Larry and Trudy Leung were billed when they toured the U.S. during 1950 in the vaudeville show "Stars on Parade". Earlier that year, the couple had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. That performance, filmed during the early days of live television, lies at the heart of Long Story Short (2008), Christine Choy's documentary about actress Jodi Long and her parents Larry and Trudy. After tracking down a tape of the performance, Jodi screens it for her mother and father — more than 50 years after the event. It's a poignant occasion. Larry claims he doesn't remember any of it, yet mouths all the words of his act. Trudy is equally touched. "It's the first time I ever saw myself on stage... I never saw myself before." As her words sank in, I keenly realized the importance of remembrance and felt gratitude for those who've documented the pioneering Asian American performers of yesteryear.

Long Story Short can be watched or downloaded for a very modest price at Amazon Video on Demand. Check out the free preview which includes a clip from their Sullivan Show appearance. Highly recommended!

* A big thanks to Eddy for the reminder about this film.

Jade Girl Smokes a Cigarette

I'm always a little surprised whenever I see this picture of "jade girl" Patricia Lam Fung, uncharacteristically shown smoking a cigarette. Smoking was de rigueur for bad girls and femme fatales like Bai Guang, but "jade girls" like Pat had to carefully protect their pure image. Even more surprising is the fact that this pinup appeared in the same issue of Southern Screen (No. 10, November 1958) as an article about Shaw's newly formed Jade Girl Fan Club, which targeted its membership to teenage girls. Hmmm... I wonder how many of Pat's young fans were inspired to imitate their idol.

Young Rock in the PRC

In the same year that Hong Kong's Young Rock (青春樂 / Qingchun le) seduced Chinese youth with the spectacle of hula hoops and rock and roll, Red China's The Song of Youth (青春之歌 / Qingchun zhige) offered an equally intoxicating tale of personal transformation and national salvation. Adapted from the bestselling novel by Yang Mo, it was one of eighteen films released in 1959 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Unlike Lam Fung in Young Rock, the heroine of The Song of Youth (played by the radiant Xie Fang) would rather study Karl Marx than sing and dance. Nonetheless, the film's finale rocks loud and hard — even if it might have also served to drown out the grumbling of the starving masses.

Lam Fung: Young Rock

 Teddy boy Mak Kay and rich girl Lam Fung in Young Rock (1959)

In my previous post I highlighted teen idols Connie Chan and Josephine Siao and the rise of the youth film during the late 1960s. The spirit of youth, however, had been simmering in Hong Kong cinema since the late 50s. In 1959, during the Chinese New Year holidays, studio rivals Shaw Brothers and MP&GI went head to head at the box office with a pair of films that were targeted squarely at the younger generation. In fact, both movies incorporated in their titles that watchword I mentioned last time: 青春 / qingchun ("youth").

In one corner was MP&GI's Spring Song (青春兒女 / Qingchun ernu), featuring "Mambo Girl" Grace Chang and "Students' Sweetheart" Jeanette Lin Tsui. In the other was Shaw's Young Rock (青春樂 / Qingchun le), starring Patricia Lam Fung, the "Jewel of Shaw". We are fortunate that Spring Song is available on video, but I'm sorry to report that Young Rock is, as far as I can ascertain, a lost film. It's a shame to think it might never be seen again. Synopses of the film suggest that Young Rock wasn't just a carbon copy of Spring Song. It was evidently somewhat edgier fare than MP&GI's lighthearted tale of personal and romantic rivalry. In the February 1959 issue of Southern Screen, Young Rock was introduced as a film about juvenile delinquency:

"What are the problems of the youth of today? What turns them into teddy-boys and teddy-girls? Shaw's latest production 'The Joy of Youth' answers these questions boldly and unreservedly. It gives a frank and penetrating analysis of the problems of the younger generation."

But while Young Rock included triads, dance hostesses, knife fights, and abductions, it also featured singing, dancing, and hula hooping — which were the main attractions. The film's songs are especially noteworthy because they mark the beginnings of Cantopop, which blended the influences of Mandarin shi dai qu, American and British pop, and Cantonese opera and folk songs into an exciting new sound.

Ad for Lam Fung's song albums

Lam Fung's 1957 debut at Shaw Brothers was a Cantonese opera film; her second film was a Republican-era ghost tale based on Pu Songling's Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. It wasn't until her third film, A Pretty Girl's Love Affair (1958), that Shaw decided to cast her as a modern-day teen in a bid to copy the success of Grace Chang, whose breakout film Mambo Girl (1957) had been a big moneymaker for rival studio MP&GI. Like Mambo Girl, A Pretty Girl's Love Affair featured catchy songs about dancing the cha cha. The film was a huge hit, and the formula was repeated in Lam Fung's subsequent Shaw films. Her songs proved so popular that LP compilations were released by Ruby Records (寶石). I believe there were a total of five albums, copies of which nowadays fetch a hefty price on the collectors market. The advertisement to your left appeared on the back cover of Southern Screen (January 1961) and gives you a sense of Lam Fung's important place in Hong Kong's music culture at the time. Notice that the other LPs are soundtracks for Shaw's blockbuster huangmei opera films starring movie queen Lin Dai.

Sadly, like her early Shaw films, none of Lam Fung's songs are currently available to the public. Lucky for us then that a dear friend of mine recently gifted me with a homemade recording of her second song album, which includes six songs from Young Rock. In this way we can at least get a taste of what the film was like.

Let me relate a few bits of trivia before you listen to the songs below. The lead singer of the first tune is Mak Kay, who plays Lam Fung's dangerous teddy boy attraction. In case you're wondering, in the opening lines he proclaims, "Ngo hai, ngo hai... ngo hai dongfang gei... shhhh... Maaaau Wong", which translates roughly as "I am, I am.... I am both the East... and the King of Cats". "King of Cats" (Mau Wong / 貓王) is the Chinese nickname for Elvis Presley (derived from his early American nickname "The Hillbilly Cat"). The American influence continues in the next song, "Who Doesn't Love Spring?", an adaptation of Debbie Reynold's 1957 hit "Tammy". And then there's "I Love Singing and Dancing", which takes its cue from Deanna Durbin singing "I Love to Whistle" in Mad about Music (1938). By the way, the scene of Deanna and her classmates cycling through the countryside served as a template for similar scenes in Lam Fung's Sweet Girl in Terror (1958) and Connie Chan's The Sweetest Moment (1967).

Without further ado, let's sing and dance with Lam Fung! As you listen to the songs, take a peek at the tantalizing stills from Young Rock in this souvenir booklet which was sold at theaters showing the film.

青春樂 ("Young Rock") with Mak Kay
(play song)

誰不愛春天 ("Who Doesn't Love Spring?")
(play song)

青春偶像 ("Teen Idol")
(play song)

我愛歌舞 ("I Love Singing and Dancing")
(play song)

大家來跳 Cha Cha Cha ("Let's Dance Cha Cha Cha") with Mak Kay
(play song)

應為人類作先鋒 ("To Be Pioneers for Humanity")
(play song)

* Thanks to Muzikland for the identification of the original American songs. For more information about Lam Fung and the birth of Cantopop, see Yung Sai-shing's "The Joy of Youth, Made in Hong Kong: Patricia Lam Fung and Shaws' Cantonese Films" in The Shaw Screen: A Preliminary Study (Hong Kong Film Archive, 2003).


 Lam Fung demonstrates the "young rock"

Koo Mei and Kitten

 from The Milky Way Pictorial (July 1959)

The Lady Who Sells Her Shadow

After reading about my interest in Liu Qi, the "Marilyn Monroe of China", fellow retro blogger Dev Yang sent me the above cover and following article — which he kindly translated — from the Kong Ngee Movie Pictorial (May 1954). It's a fun and fascinating look at an apparently superb actress who's been practically forgotten nowadays.

Liu Qi—The Lady Who Sells Her Shadow
by Xiao Han

I first met Liu Qi in Shanghai. She had just left Chungking and was living with her girlfriend on the fourth floor of the luxurious Paramount Hotel. It was the hotel’s largest suite and comprised several rooms. At the time, I was close to her roommate. Although I had barely made her acquaintance, I was struck by her unique beauty: not very pretty but charming and sexy.

Her roommate once told me, “Back in Chungking, Liu Qi was a notable figure, not only because of her reputation as a stage actress but also for her people skills. But don’t think that she is the kind of socialite who sells her body for money. She’s not like those social butterflies in Shanghai.”

I watched Liu Qi’s screen debut in Shanghai, The Man Who Sells His Shadow (1948), and found both her appearance and acting quite appealing. “Quite appealing” was my pet phrase for her, because I truly believed that she had a bright future in the film industry, especially since there were a lot of mediocre actresses at the time, and she was clearly a cut above them all. However, her girlfriend once told me, “Liu Qi will not remain in the film industry forever. She has a great, beautiful dream she wants to pursue.” I was keen to know more about this dream, but my friend said it was a secret. And because I wasn’t so close to Liu Qi, I decided it would be impolite to “interrogate” my friend further.

I met Liu Qi again after I emigrated to Hong Kong. Both of us were surprised by that feeling of “old friends meeting abroad”. (To avoid any unwanted speculation, I should clarify that it was probably only myself who felt this way.) Since then we’ve had more opportunities to get to know each other. I still fondly remember the time we met on New Year’s Day in 1951 at a party thrown by the Hong Kong Actors Guild at the Nanyang Studio. I danced with her several times and asked her about herself. I adored her witty replies, one of which was: “I guess I’m finally ready to sell my shadow”. I was confused at first, but then I understood her meaning: she was ready to commit herself wholeheartedly to the Eighth Art. Indeed, don’t all actors and actresses sell their shadows?

Since resuming her career in Hong Kong, Liu Qi has played mostly supporting roles, despite the fact that she is an experienced and versatile actress. She was remarkable in several of her movies and often stole the limelight from the leading players. As a result, it’s been rumored that some of the top actresses are jealous of Liu Qi and pray that they won’t have to appear in same film with her. Unfortunately, most Hong Kong directors are only concerned with the leading lady and willingly change the script at her behest, which leaves little room for Liu Qi to demonstrate her chops. Such discrimination isn’t fair, and many people feel sorry for her. When she’s asked why, with her beauty and ability, she still hasn’t gotten the chance to become a lead actress, Liu Qi just replies with a smile. Actually, I think this situation is due to the narrow-minded belief of the industry that the “experienced and mature” type will always be the “experienced and mature” type. But thankfully producer Fung Ming-yuen recognized Liu Qi’s qualities and talent and cast her as the leading lady in his latest project, Night Homecoming, based on Cao Yu’s play "The Wilderness".

Yan Jun, currently the top actor in Hong Kong, agreed to costar with Liu Qi in this project. (Their first film together was in fact The Man Who Sells His Shadow, which was also Yan Jun’s own breakthrough as a leading man). Although I know for a fact that Liu Qi personally asked him to join the production, Yan Jun didn’t do it only as a favor. “Liu Qi is a great actress. She shouldn't be undervalued or ignored. She’s just as good as those ‘leading ladies’ out there and ought to be given more opportunities before she becomes a casualty of the star system. Liu Qi is an old friend from my Shanghai days, and it’s my duty to help her out.”

Night Homecoming is now finished, and Liu Qi's performance is extraordinary. Critically acclaimed, it’s her best since she started “selling her shadow”. Thanks to the film, Liu Qi has been recruited as the leading lady of the newly established Asia Pictures and will soon appear in two upcoming features, The Heroine and Tradition. Her future is now looking very bright indeed.

Compared to the leading ladies of other studios, Liu Qi is taller and more statuesque—and weighing in at 132 pounds, the heaviest among them. But thanks to her even proportions and exquisite curves, she looks balanced and refined, especially on the silver screen. Currently, she is undergoing an intensive exercise regimen to bring down her weight and is aiming for 125 pounds by the end of March.

Among her colleagues, Liu Qi is known as “Sister Hussy” because she is outspoken and likes to tell dirty jokes. But at work or on formal occasions, she is always gracious and well mannered. Liu Qi also loves dancing and playing mahjong. These are her only two hobbies. She holds a record for 60 consecutive rounds of mahjong. And when it comes to dancing, she has been described as “The Rival without Equal among All Men”. Once she went to the Happy Palace Club with thirteen men and danced with them nonstop for two hours. She laughed and said, “I played ‘One Woman and Thirteen Men’. What’s the big deal?”

Now, isn’t she witty?

Smoking Diva: Bai Guang

 Bai Guang in A Forgotten Woman (1949)

Let me offer another nicotine-stained post to all of you aficionados out there. My old time buddy Dev Yang "hand-rolled" the following video with choice clips from Miss Bai's classic film A Forgotten Woman (1949) wrapped in a sad song — "The Past is Like Smoke" — from her silver screen farewell, Love's Sad Ending (1959).

Bai Guang: Light My Fire

If you're not yet familiar with Bai Guang — "China's only torch singer" — here's a nice introduction that appeared in Malaya's English-language Radio Weekly sometime in '53. (Many thanks to Oldflames for hooking me up with this rare piece.)

And because addicts love company, let me tempt you with a hit of Miss White Light's "Mad Love" before we proceed...

BAI KWONG, TOP STAR
by LAO WEI

THERE is little difference in the style of singing of the dozen or so top vocalists in the Chinese recording industry. Their voices sound very much alike and only a practised ear can tell them apart.

But two artistes do stand out. One is the incomparable Yao Lee whose mellow voice, sympathetic performance and unerring good taste put her in a class all her own. The other is Bai Kwong. China's only "torch singer" and without a doubt her most glamorous film star.

Bai Kwong (White Light) retired from the recording and film business after her marriage to an American airline pilot. She now lives in Japan.

*

SHE toured Singapore and the Federation two years ago and was enthusiastically received by her fans.

Her films are popular here.

This popularity, however, was not echoed by one section of the Chinese press which, annoyed by her independent ways, commented so unfavourably about her doings that she returned to Hong Kong earlier than she had intended, somewhat embittered.

Bai Kwong is the Chinese film-goer's equivalent of Jane Russell, Marlene Dietrich and Rita Hayworth, all rolled into one. She has a low, throaty voice which she uses to great effect both in conversation and song.

*

HER discs sell well. Into all of them she transmits her warm, inviting personality.

Her rumbas, tangos and boleros are smooth and sentimental. The titles of her recordings indicate the type of song she specialises in, "Let Us Not Waste Tonight", "Mad Love", "It's Delightful When We Are Together", "I'm a Goddess".

"Let Us Not Waste Tonight" (Pathe 35826), a charming rumba, is coupled with another satisfying piece, "Waiting for My Love".

"Mad Love" is a stirring bolero with an unusually good orchestral accompaniment. On the other side of this disc (Pathe 35841) is a slow, dreamy tango, "Haunting Old Dream".

*

"IT'S Delightful When We Are Together" and "I'm Awaiting Your Return" (Pathe 35739) are two typical Bai Kwong songs in which she makes full use of that throaty, sexy voice.

Then there is a naughty little tune, "I'm a Goddess", in which the singer tells her admirers that if they want to gain her favour they must approach her on bended knee."

A street walker laments her unhappy fate in a sentimental tango, "Street Lamps on a Cold Night" (Pathe 35852). On the reverse, the tempo shifts to a rousing march, "Mountain of Youth", a call to young people to work hard to reach the summit of the mountain of success.

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THIS is rather an unusual type of song for Bai Kwong to sing. But "morale boosting tunes have always been popular with the Chinese, and marches especially so since the establishment of the republic and the growing surge of national pride.

The Communists make effective use of songs and dances in their propaganda by playing on the Chinese people's love for these two mediums of expression.

The way Bai Kwong renders a song, however, would not please the Reds: She gives it too much personality, and such subtle feminine inflections that the listeners' thoughts are very far, indeed, from such things as Communism.

So... Do you suddenly find yourself craving more of the beguiling Miss Bai? ... Don't sweat it, stick around... I've got your fix.

Liu Qi: Bigger than Marilyn

Do you remember Liu Qi and her funky knit leotard from a few months ago? Well, I recently stumbled upon some amusing articles about Miss Liu in the American press.

It appears that in 1953 she was being touted via AP's photo wire as "the Marilyn Monroe of China" (Syracuse Herald, October 9, 1953). The caption mentioned her latest film as being Tradition, which was one of the first productions of Asia Pictures, a U.S. government–funded film company founded by Zhang Guoxing, a former correspondent for United Press International. The studio was a part of a larger campaign to counter Communist influence in Hong Kong and overseas Chinese communities through the deployment of soft propaganda. Apparently, a key ingredient of which was good ol' American cheesecake.

Some months later, however, Liu Qi was apparently taking issue with her new nickname. The following articles, however contrived they may be, seem to offer a genuine glimpse of the proud Miss Liu, as well as some insight into the complex situation of being a Chinese film star in the Cold War era.

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Buxom Chinese Actress Refutes 'Marilyn' Title
by Albert Yuan

TAIPEH, Formosa, May 23 (UP) — A curvaceous Chinese movie actress from Hongkong bitterly refuted her unofficial title, the "Chinese Marilyn Monroe," today and loudly proclaimed she was being victimized.

"I really don't know why you newspapermen always link my name with her," she said angrily.

"I am Liu Chi," she said, perking her heavily lipsticked mouth.

But a close female associate, in a position to know, quickly muttered, "She has a bigger bust than Marilyn."

Proves Point

Miss Liu Chu has a 37-inch bust to prove her point.

After five days of entertaining National Chinese troops with other charmers from Hongkong, luscious Liu Chi sneaked out for a shampoo.

In a secluded beauty parlor, Miss Liu bitterly exhibited her Oriental pride and features.

"Do I look like Marilyn Monroe?" she asked this correspondent.

"You look better," I replied, numb with admiration for her buxom beauty.

She angrily snorted and returned to her shampoo.

One Inch

The United Press, in a close check, found out that Miss Liu Chi outdid Mrs. Joe DiMaggio by at least one inch.

"If I were in Hollywood," the Hongkong actress said, "I would be more glamorous than she."

Miss Liu Chi appeared exhausted after shaking hands with nearly 3,200 Nationalist soldiers who had waited hours to see her.

Her itinerary had included Tachen Island off the China mainland coast, but her trip to that island was cancelled because of the fighting there.

— Pacific Stars & Stripes, May 23, 1954

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Most Women Wriggle Hips, She Says
Chinese Star Sees Nothing Unusual about Monroe Walk
by PETER SUM

HONGKONG — UP — Hongkong's answer to Marilyn Monroe thinks the Hollywood star's celebrated walk is "every woman's walk."

Liu Chi, who has a 36-inch bust, 24-inch waist, a 37-inch hip, and the "Monroe walk," said:

"The Monroe walk is every woman's walk and there's nothing peculiar about it."

The 28-year-old Chinese star is not one to run down the male population.

Plays Other Woman

"A man is just as untrustworthy as a woman," she said. "If a woman complains that her man is untrustworthy, then why permit him to be her man?"

Miss Liu, a native of Peiping, began making movies five years ago. Earlier she acted on the stage in China's wartime capital of Chungking.

She came to Hongkong from Shanghai when the Communists were threatening that city in 1949, and since then she has made six movies. She usually plays the part of "the other woman."

Plans To Visit U.S.

Miss Liu made a trip to Tokyo and Formosa in February this year. She said she went to Tokyo for "recreation" and to Formosa to "boost the morale of Nationalist troops" and "to comfort freed former Chinese prisoners of war from Korea."

Like most other successful Chinese movie actresses who are now in Hongkong, Miss Liu plans to visit America, especially Hollywood.

"I am applying for an entry visa for the United States where I wish to remain as long as my money and the U.S. authorities permit me," she said.

Asked whether she will consider making movies in the United States, the oval-faced beauty said:

"It has to depend on whether American producers have an eye for me."

— Lubbock Evening Journal, June 25, 1954

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As far as I know, Liu Qi never did make it to Hollywood. But she most definitely caught the eye of this humble blogger. Stay tuned for more about the lovely Miss Liu.