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.

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.

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"

South Sea Greetings

Sorry for the sudden disappearance! I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the past two weeks. I'm struggling to get back into my blogging routine but hope to share some of the finds from my trip in the coming days — like this lovely tropical Christmas card featuring Fanny Fan and Patricia Lam Fung.

Hong Kong Fashionista: Patricia Lam Fung

After dressing up Maggie Cheung, I feel inspired to post a few more fashion-related items. Here are three photos of the always stylish Patricia Lam Fung. I believe they originally appeared as glossy cardstock inserts in local newspapers. The cards could be cut out, and of course collected. They're not as fabulous as her color "Teen Fashion" cards but still quite nice.

The Seven Sisters

Don't mess with the Seven Daughters of Tsoi!

How's this for an unusual lineup: Patricia Lam Fung, Cantonese jade girl, just after her departure from Shaw Brothers; Amoy actress Xiao Juan, shortly before her reinvention as Ivy Ling Po, Shaw's queen of huangmei opera films; American-born Cantonese star Chow Kwun-ling, in one of her last movies; Ouyang Shafei, veteran actress of the Mandarin screen; and an 11-year-old Nancy Sit, years before she donned her first pair of go-go boots. The 1962 Cantonese film The Seven Sisters (aka The Seven Daughters of Tsoi aka Seven Playful Women) has them all.

The following synopsis appeared in Screenland No. 27 (December 1961). A scan of the original article is available here.

"THE SEVEN SISTERS"

Lap Tat Company's current comedy "The Seven Sisters" is an excellent piece of entertainment. But it also points out, quite seriously, to contemporary parents how to handle the love and marriages of their grown-up daughters.

The seven sisters are all daughters of Au-yang Sha-fei. The eldest Chau Kwan-ling is efficient business-wise. She has been taking care of the family business since her father died, never realizing that she is getting older and older, and not yet married. The second sister Mei Lan is more lucky; she is ready to marry a musician. The third sister Patricia Lam Fung is too shy and modest, trying all the time to match her eldest sister and Soo Siu-tong, who is secretly in love with her. The fourth sister, an expert on love, plays with fire and is almost burned. The fifth sister is not grown-up yet but trying all the time to convince others that she has. The sixth and the seventh, fortunately, are still too young to cause trouble, or the problem would be even more complicated.

Here are seven more lobby cards. I love the pointing motif that runs throughout the set.








I don't know whether to feel envious or sorry for the hapless fellows who marry into this matriarchal clan!

Lam Fung: The Teen Fashion Never Ends

Here are two more of Patricia Lam's "Teen Fashion" cards that I found at a shop in Mongkok during my recent trip to Hong Kong. As always, Pat looks positively perfect!

Patricia Lam Fung: An Odd Film

"Eight dine together; but actually they are played by only four persons. This is enough reason to call the film odd." (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

I was very happy to find this article in Screenland No. 27 (December 1961) about The Mysterious Family (1962), aka Romance in the Manor House. Not only does it look like a cool movie, but it's also one of the five films made by the Merry Film Company, Patricia Lam Fung's very own production company which she started after leaving Shaw Brothers in 1961. A scan of the original article is available here.

An Odd Film
"The Mysterious Family"

This is the third film of the Merry Company, made after its first, "Sha Sam-siu", and second, "Three Grooms for Three Brides".

The reason that "The Mysterious Family" is called an odd film you can actually see for yourself in the pictures on these two pages. You will undoubtedly notice that most of the stars appear dually in the same scene. This is true. For in fact, every actor, from the leads to the co-stars, plays more than one role in the film.

The film stars Patricia Lam Fung, Ng Cho-fan, Wu Fung, and Yung Siu-yi. Patricia Lam Fung plays three roles as a mother and two twin daughters. Ng Cho-fan plays a dual role as father and son, with Wu Fung as two twin brothers and Yung Siu-yi as a mother and a daughter.

It was extremely difficult not mixing everything up while making this film and cost director Mok Hong-si plenty of brain work. As to the story, it is too complicated to explain here but will be told in our Movie Story pages.


One of the Wu Fungs is happy while the other one is jealous.

There is another film made by Pat's company that also sounds good: The Princess and the Magnificent Seven (1962). It co-stars my favorite fatty, Peng Peng, and the "Seven Little Fortunes". I'm not sure if little Jackie Chan appeared in the movie, but Sammo Hung, Yuen Wah, Ng Ming-choi, and Yuen Qiu were among the cast. How cool is that!

You Can't Outsmart Pat!

To celebrate Patricia Lam Fung's birthday (which I found out about thanks to Enjoy Yourself Tonight), here's an amusing pictorial from Screenland No. 24 (September 1961) that perfectly captures Pat's capricious charm. A scan of the original is available here.


It was their day off and Patricia went with Cheung Ying Choy to visit a friend in his bungalow. But the friend was not in, so they sat down on the front porch to wait. Cheung nursed a monstrous idea while Pat was reading a copy of Screenland to pass the time.


When Pat seemed deeply absorbed he shook the ashes from his cigarette into her cup and stirred, very much amused. He called it an "added attraction".


But Patricia was not that dumb. Her eyes were on the magazine but she caught his every movement. He thought he was perfect but she was not fooled a bit.


She knew exactly what he was trying to do but she said nothing, for she had a counter-plan. Casually, she dropped the magazine on the floor, seemingly careless.


Cheung didn't know better. And to prove that he was a real gentleman, he stooped to retrieve the magazine. That was the moment Pat had been waiting for. Swiftly, she exchanged their cups.


Her movements were lightning fast and before Cheung straightened up, their cups had exchanged places. He never dreamed that she could be so cunning and so quick to act.


He handed her the magazine and she thanked him with a sweet smile. He thought he was a hero. "Now, Pat," he said, "you must be very contented to have a friend who is so considerate like me, eh?"


"Sure," Patricia replied, "otherwise I wouldn't have picked you to escort me." Cheung leaned back comfortably and thought it was about time to pull the string. So he raised his cup. "To our friendship," he said, smiling secretly.


He raised the cup to his lips, all the time watching how Pat would react, and drank deeply. He was thinking that the taste of the cigarette ashes would provide his amusement any minute.


But then his tongue told him that there was something wrong with his tea. And it tasted like it was mixed with some kind of ash. He scowled in puzzlement. Could it be that...


Patricia was already laughing hard and she seemed not affected in the least after downing her "added attraction". The truth was beginning to dawn on him when she asked, "How does it taste, your tea? Mine is very good."


It was apparent now the joke was on himself, and he couldn't even complain! And he had to admit it when Pat said, "You better stop trying, Cheung Ying Choy, for you will never see the day when you can outsmart me!"

Lam Fung Lights Up My Life

Maybe it's just because her best films, the ones she made for Shaw Brothers between 1957 and 1961, are languishing in a dark vault somewhere, but Patricia Lam Fung has quickly become my number one cause and latest favorite star.

Here she is, the "Jewel of Shaw", in a 1963 advertisement for Philips. This stunning photo shows Patricia in full movie queen mode, rivaling Li Lihua, Lin Dai, and Loh Tih in elegance and sophistication, all the while retaining her characteristic warmth and openness.

I've said this before, and I will keep on saying it until the situation changes: the neglect shown towards Lam Fung's early films is, besides baffling, simply inexcusable.

To help you understand why I am so upset by this, imagine if Audrey Hepburn's films were locked away, never to be seen again. This is what I'm talking about. Patricia Lam Fung is that huge and that important to Hong Kong cinema.

Let me state it plain and clear: Lam Fung's Shaw films need to be restored and made available to the public. Besides all of her original fans who are dying to see these beloved classics once again, there are new fans like myself who have become enchanted with Patricia solely through old photos and movie magazines.

Lam Fung is ripe for a new audience. Don't keep her brilliance trapped inside a rusting film can. Unleash the "Jewel"! Let Patricia Lam light up our lives!

* A great big thanks to Oldflames for the scan, the title, the info, and the inspiration!

Patricia Lam Fung: Posing Genius

Continuing with my recent theme of photographers and models, here is a wonderful pictorial of Lam Fung from Screenland No. 25 (October 1961). The original article is available here.

BTW, I couldn't help noticing Patricia's nice biceps!

A Study of Posing with a Ball

Patricia Lam Fung, who has become a free star only recently, is one of the stars who are most skillful in posing before the camera. Photographers all appreciate her being their model, especially the famous Mr. Yung Yung, who has worked with Pat many times before and was responsible for photographing the pictures on these pages.

Since this was not the first time Mr. Yung Yung had photographed Pat in a swimming costume, Pat suggested that she pose with a swimming ball for some variety, and Yung agreed. When Yung was ready with his gadgets, he glanced at Pat who was standing before him, already changed into a bathing suit and holding a swimming ball, then asked suddenly:

"How many different poses do you think you can come up with that ball by yourself? I know you don't like to be told how to pose." Pat shrugged and replied, "It's hard to say, maybe just two or three. We will have to get the ball rolling and then see."

"All right," Yung agreed, "and I have an idea too. How about us doing it as fast as we can? You pose and I will snap it immediately. That way, we can have some photographs which will look as natural as possible."

Pat smiled. "So be it. For I know you too, speed being what you always demand."

So she made a pose and his camera clicked and he rolled the film without a pause, but not before Pat had made another new pose....

So they went quickly and smoothly, as you have never seen. And Pat proved again that she really was a posing genius, her every pose being so wonderful and yet made so swiftly, seemingly effortless and requiring no concentration at all. An outsider would actually think that she was shooting some movie films. For all you could see was Pat writhing like a serpent on the grass, now opening her eyes, now bent at her middle, now straightened, now squatting, now sitting, all with fluid and continuous motion.

In exactly fifteen minutes' time, twenty-two poses were shot and Yung was exhausted. He stopped Pat, gasping, "That's enough for the time being. I really can't go on anymore. My legs are giving out!"

So Pat stopped with a smile, and I, the bystander, remarked that it was like a race of endurance between model and photographer.

Patricia Lam Fung: Hong Kong's Golden Girl

The more I see of Lam Fung in the pages of movie magazines, the more I am convinced that she wasn't your typical jade girl, not just your ordinary girl-next-door. With her ability to effortlessly adopt an endless array of looks and personas, she was more like a Super Girl-next-door.

Patricia had an expansive energy that cool, reserved jade girls like Lucilla Yu Ming and Grace Ting Ning lacked. Only the spirited, high-wattage Grace Chang could match her in sheer exuberance. Even so — and I'm going out on a limb by saying this, without having seen a single one of her early films — I believe that it was Lam Fung who was the brighter star.

The continued unavailability of Patricia's Shaw Brothers films is truly a great loss to the history of Chinese cinema and a dishonor to the memory of Hong Kong's beloved golden girl.


* Thanks to Oldflames for the absolutely amazing Happiness Pictorial cover. It's a perfect peach of a picture!

Lam Fung, Won't You Be My Young Companion?

Every time I look through my eBay archive — a folder of some 6,000 unnamed and unorganized JPEG files that I've downloaded over the past three-and-a-half years — it's like opening a treasure chest.

Case in point: this absolutely stunning portrait of Patricia Lam Fung from the cover of The Young Companion (June, 1960). I love everything about it: from the soft focus seaside background to the bold and modern characters of the magazine title (良友, liang you, literally "good friend"). And of course, there's Lam Fung, impeccably stylish as always, in her adorable summer print dress and colorful hat with hanging yellow ribbon.

Anyway, I was intending on just posting the cover, because as far as I'm concerned, a picture of lovely Lam Fung doesn't need any words to accompany it. But, you know me, I felt the need to say a little bit about the seminal Young Companion magazine, or a least point a link to someone else who has already said it better than I could. As luck would have it, I found Young Companion's official website, which features a great English-language introduction to the magazine's history, along with some (unfortunately small) images of covers from the 1920s and 30s.

Lam Fung: Still More Teen Fashion

Here's the last of my Lam Fung Teen Fashion cards. I don't really care for Lam Fung's big hair in these photos, but her outfits are pretty cute!

Lam Fung: More Teen Fashion

Here are some more advertising cards for Patricia Lam Fung's fashion company, Yuk Fung [Jade Phoenix] Fashion. According to Dev Yang, there are advertisements for the company's catalog in quite a number of movie magazines from that time. Lam Fung modeled the outfits, and occasionally so did other stars, like Suet Nei for instance.