Back with a Bang, Better than Bond

Howdy, folks! It's good to be back. Here's a little bang bang to get us started again: two clips from Josephine Siao's 1967 action film The Professionals (金鷗).

First up are the opening credits — featuring Josephine dressed à la mode in a pirate's blouse and cravat and psychedelic print pants with white belt — followed by a scene in which she proves that she's way cooler than that British bloke... what was his name...



* Thanks to Todd at 4DK for the loaner! Available on VCD from YesAsia.com

Wanted: Miss So Ching

So Ching in Gold Button (1966)

Why is it that I find myself tortuously intrigued by Hong Kong actresses about whom I can find scant or absolutely no information in English? Such is the case with So Ching (蘇青). Looking at her filmography, she appears to have been part of an attempt by the Mingxing Film Company to cash in on the "Jane Bond" film craze ignited by Connie Chan and Josephine Siao in the mid-60s.

During the peak of the genre's frenzy, So Ching made four "Jane Bond" films for Mingxing: Gold Button (1966), The Golden Gun (1966), The White Swan (1967), and Pink Bomb (1967). All four films co-starred Cantonese cinema's all-purpose leading man Wu Fung, Fanny Fan (who had just reignited her sex bomb image in Shaw Brothers' The Golden Buddha), and Cathay hunk Roy Chiao Hung (who was branching out into Cantonese films).

So Ching also made two swordplay films for the studio with Josephine Siao and Cheung Ying-choi: The Golden Bat (1966) and Return of the Golden Bat (1966). Here's an advertisement for all four of Mingxing's "gold" titled features from that year.

After 1967, So Ching was absent from the silver screen until the end of 1969, when she showed up supporting Patrick Tse Yin in a swordplay film called The Charming Killer. By 1970, it appears that her flash in the pan was beginning to dim. She made four films that year, one of which — The Sexual World — appears to have set the course for the brief remainder of her career.

Besides what I've been able to glean from her filmography, the only mention of her that I've come across is this one from Hong Kong film critic and independent filmmaker Bryan Chang's essay "Waste Not Our Youth: My World of Sixties Cantonese Movies". Reminiscing about the Cantonese actresses of his childhood, Chang says:

Then, one day, I was drinking with friends and the name of So Ching was mentioned. Everybody shouted 'Bravo!' To put it truthfully, she was not a first-rate actress but she was as pure as an angel in her sex appeal. She specialized in playing spies and secret agents strutting about in hot pants. So Ching is the alternative cult figure who can fill the gaps of those who dislike the sexpots Tina Ti and Fan Lai.

I wish I could tell you more about So Ching, but that's all I know. While I can't give a reward to anyone offering information leading to my further appreciation of her, here are some glamor shots that certainly capture some of her "pure as an angel" sex appeal.


From The Screen & Stage Pictorial (August, 1966)


Postcard featuring Miss So Ching

References

• Bryan Chang, "Waste Not Our Youth: My World of Sixties Cantonese Movies", The Restless Breed: Cantonese Stars of the Sixties (Hong Kong: Urban Council, 1996)

Who's That Sexy Lady...

Wow! I never thought that I'd see my favorite tomboy Jeanette Lin Tsui sporting a bikini. She's always been more spunky than sexy (although no less attractive for it), but I was a little surprised — and disappointed — by her goody good girl performance in The Golden Buddha (1966), the first of Shaw Brothers' several James Bond clones. Not only did she not display even a hint of sexiness, she didn't get to kick any butt either!

Come on... Lin Tsui was *the* girl jock of Hong Kong cinema. MP&GI's campus comedy Spring Song (1959) was tailor made to showcase her athletic talents and featured her water skiing, hunting, and competing in archery. What a disappointment then to see Jeanette do so little in The Golden Buddha (especially compared to Lily Ho's role a year later in Angel with the Iron Fists). Instead, we get stuck with the Paul Chang Chung doing his best Sean Connery — and not quite pulling it off. (Thank goodness Fanny Fan is there to provide some genuine Bond-style excitement!)

So what's up with this film?... Secret Agent 101 (also known as Magic Fire 101), a Shochiku production shot in Hong Kong with the help of MP&GI and released the same year as The Golden Buddha.


How come Japanese audiences (and movie fans in Yugoslavia, which is where this poster comes from) were the lucky ones to see Lin Tsui looking sexy in a bikini and armed with a gun?! And more importantly, where can I find this film?

The Blonde Hair Monster (1962)

Movie ad from the back cover of a romance magazine

In my recent post about Shaw Brothers' Oriole, the Heroine, I mentioned that martial-arts queen Yu So Chow had portrayed the character in eight films, the last of which was The Blonde Hair Monster, starring a young Connie Chan. Well, it just so happens that one of my favorite YouTubers, SHUESIK, has made an awesome 3-minute music video that distills the pulpy essence of this fun little movie.

Fanny Fan: Oriole, the Heroine (ca. 1957-58?)

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.)

Yu So-chow: Double Pistol Heroine

This is hands-down one of the crown jewels of my memorabilia collection: some rare original artwork advertising Double Pistol Heroine, a martial-arts Western starring Yu So-chow. I was never able to find out much about this movie, but according to Jean Lukitsh's recently posted profile of Yu So-chow, it happens to be her first film!

The ad (which probably originated from Singapore) also mentions a cofeature: Yu's 1951 movie Hwu San Niang the Heroine (also known as A Girl in Green and A Woman as Sharp as a Blade), based on the character from the classic novel Water Margin.

Going, Going, Gone!

On your mark, get set, bid!

The race to acquire this extremely rare and super cool photograph of pioneering martial-arts star Wu Lizhu has gotten off to an early start, and — sadly — it's already priced way beyond my wallet. Known as the "Oriental Female Fairbanks", Wu started her career in Shanghai in 1925 and sometime around 1940 or 1941 moved to Hong Kong, where she continued to make martial arts movies, such as Female Robin Hood (1947) and The Story of Wong Ang the Heroine (1960).

Stay tuned for the final price...

Bat Girl: Hong Kong-style Part 2

If you were wondering why Josephine Siao's The Lady Killer was also known as Bat Girl, just check out her crime-fighting outfit in this detail from the movie flyer. Here are the entire front and back of the flyer. BTW, the film's director was Wong Fung, who was screenwriter for the prolific 1950s Wong Fei Hung film series. Besides Bat Girl and the previously mentioned Blue Falcon, he made one other "Jane Bond" film with Josephine, called Golden Skeleton (1967), which I'm happy to report has survived and is viewable at the Hong Kong Film Archive. But if you're not planning on going to Hong Kong any time soon, then do yourself a favor and watch a fun film he made in 1962 with a young Connie Chan, called The Blonde Hair Monster.

Bat Girl: Hong Kong-style Part 1

For my inaugural post, I thought I'd do a tie-in with Todd Stadtman's latest posting of some of my Blue Falcon lobby cards. Here is the EP cover for another one of Josephine Siao's "Jane Bond" films: The Lady Killer (1967), also known as Bat Girl. I love Josephine's flamenco six-shooter look and the blood squib graphic! Sadly, this film, like Blue Falcon, is missing in action.