Hitchcock à la Hong Kong

Check out this cool flyer for Black Cat, the Cat Burglar (1956), a remake of To Catch a Thief, starring Ng Cho-fan, "The Movie King of South China", and former Miss Saigon Tsang Lam-si. Talk about your Cantonese quickie — it was released less than two months after the original played in Hong Kong!

Grace Chang: Mambo Girl

Because there's no such thing as too much Grace Chang, here are two items that Oldflames kindly sent me to share with all of you: a fabulous photo of Grace flashing her signature megawatt smile and a positively smashing, pink Mambo Girl flyer.



And as if that weren't enough, here is the film's legendary opening scene. Take it away, Gracie!

Made in America: Grandview's Color Films

I've talked before about the pioneering 16mm color films of Joseph Sunn Jue's Grandview Film Company. Recently, I had the good fortune of acquiring a few fliers for some of these movies from an eBay seller in Malaysia (which is proof of just how far they traveled).

Jue, along with director Moon Kwan, had established the Grandview Film Company in San Francisco in 1933. The studio's inaugural feature was Romance of the Songsters, starring Kwan Tak-hing (best known for playing Wong Fei-hung in the original 1950s series). One of the first Cantonese talkies, the movie was a big hit with Chinese American audiences and was popular in Hong Kong as well.

In 1935, with the support of Chinese American investors, Jue moved the studio to Hong Kong, where it quickly became one of the colony's "big four" film companies. Grandview's prolific output included patriotic appeals like Lifeline (1935) and Close Combat (1937), direct responses to Japan's increasing aggression against China, and light-hearted fare such as The Modern Bride (1935) and Stage Lights (1938), which provided momentary escape from the darkening clouds of war.

The Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941 put a halt to film production in the territory. Undeterred, Jue returned to San Francisco and continued making movies. Between 1942 and 1947, 21 features were made: all contemporary stories depicting the lives of Chinese Americans. The films were shot on 16mm, some in black-and-white and some in color. Most Hollywood movies were still black-and-white at the time, so Jue's decision to shoot in color was quite ambitious. After opening at his Chinatown theater, the films traveled to Chinese American communities across the United States. (I've been unable to determine if they were screened anywhere outside the U.S. during the war.)

In 1947, after the end of the war, Jue returned to Hong Kong and brought the films with him. They were enormously popular and helped raise the money needed to restart his Hong Kong studio. Eventually, the films were screened in Malaysia and Singapore, where the fliers below were printed.

The American productions of the Grandview Film Company deserve far more attention than they have received (especially here in the U.S., where they've been practically forgotten). At a time when the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and Shanghai resulted, respectively, in the cessation and co-option of Chinese film production, Joseph Sunn Jue helped keep Chinese cinema alive. That these films also depicted the lives of Chinese Americans at a crucial turning point in their history makes them even more important.

Luckily, a third of Grandview's American films have survived and are available for public viewing at the Hong Kong Film Archive. I'm planning on taking a look at some of them during my upcoming trip to Hong Kong, so stay tuned for a report. In the meantime, here are the fliers for four of Grandview's color films shot in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.




Joy and Peace
HK release: March 6, 1947
Prod: Joseph Sunn Jue
Dir/Scr: Chiang Wai-kwong
Cast: Sun Chu, Wong Chiu-mo, Tang Pui, Chow Kwun-ling (aka Patricia Joe), Man Ha, Wong Hok-sing, Leung Bik-yuk
Note: The flier's use of the Republic of China flag and the graphic "V" (for "Victory") indicates that this was one of Grandview's patriotic movies. It is not known whether the film survives.




The Returned Soul
HK release: October 9, 1947
Prod: Joseph Sunn Jue
Dir/Scr: Wong Kam-yan (pseudonym of Wong Hok-sing)
Cast: Leung Bik-yuk, Tang Pui, Wong Hok-sing, Sun Chu, Wong Kam-lung
Note: The studio also produced more typical genre fare like this detective thriller. It is not known whether the film survives.




A Strong Wind Banished the Swallow
HK release: September 6, 1948
Prod: Joseph Sunn Jue
Dir: Joseph Sunn Jue
Cast: Lai Yee (aka Marianne Quon), Tang Pui, Liu Kei-wai, Chiu Man-fai, Wong Kam-lung, Shum Lit-fu, Tam Chui-lan
Note: A copy of this film is in safekeeping at the Hong Kong Film Archive; a reference video is available for viewing at the Archive's resource center.




A Fair Lady by the Blue Lagoon
HK release: March 6, 1949
Prod: Joseph Sunn Jue
Dir: Esther Eng
Cast: Siu Fei-fei, Liu Kei-wai, Tang Pui, Wong Hok-sing, Wong Kam-lung
Note: The director Esther Eng is one of Chinese cinema's pioneering female filmmakers. Evidently, none of the nine films she made survives today.


References and Further Reading

• Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View by Law Kar and Frank Bren
• "The American Connection in Early Hong Kong Cinema" by Law Kar, from The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity
• Silver Light: A Pictorial History of Hong Kong Cinema, 1920-1970 by Paul Fonoroff

Everything You Wanted to Know about Blue Warblers and Hong Kong Mermaids

Allow me to give a big thanks to Dev Yang for answering a question that's been burning in the back of my mind ever since I bought this cool flyer about eight months ago. I've been dying to know more about the star of Hongkong Mermaids (1950), but the only information about her in English I could find was that this was her first film (which, as it turns out, is not quite true). So, when Dev posted about Lan Ying-ying earlier this week, I was practically jumping for joy.

Dev writes primarily for his Chinese-language blog, so it's always a treat when he posts to his English-language blog. If you're at all interested in or curious about the rich history of Chinese film, do yourself a favor and check out The Golden Age of Chinese Language Cinema.

Three Musketeers Hong Kong-Style

This post is a special shout-out to Tars Tarkas, who gave me lots of love on his blog the other day. I was perversely happy to hear him confess that he is driven crazy by my penchant for posting about "some awesome-sounding Chinese film that probably no longer exists". Believe me, I drive myself just as crazy! And I often wonder why I am more excited about some film I will never be able to see than I am about the newly released second part of John Woo's Red Cliff, the "most expensive Chinese-language movie ever". What's wrong with me?!

Well, here's another lost treasures to drive me and Tars crazy (and anyone else who gets excited about such things): a flyer for the 1952 film The Precious Sword and the Magic Bow aka Three Lady Fighters aka Daughters of Musketeer. It's directed by martial-arts movie pioneer Yam Yu-tin and stars Hong Kong action queen Yu So-chow and Yam's daughter Yam Yin.

Click on the image for a larger version.

The Pretty Lady Behind the Ugly Face Is...

A big thanks to Dev for identifying the pretty lady behind the ugly face. It turns out that she is none other than Chang Lye Lye, older sister of Landi Chang. The multi-talented Chang sisters hailed from Singapore and came from a showbiz family. Their father was a pioneering circus performer, and their mother was allegedly the first ballerina in China. Leaving war-torn China, the family moved to Singapore in 1941 and joined the Shen Chang Fu Circus. Lye Lye and Landi grew up under the big top and learned singing, dancing, and acrobatics at a young age. They soon became the star performers of the troupe.

In 1954 the sisters traveled with the Shen Chang Fu Circus to Hong Kong. Around this time Chang Lye Lye's career as a singer took off, and she soon started appearing in films singing a song or two and sometimes in a featured role. Her name first shows up in the credits of Selamat Tinggal Kekasihku [Goodbye My Love], a 1955 Malay film made by the Cathay-Keris Company. She broke into Chinese movies shortly thereafter thanks to Lo Wei who asked her to play a role in his film Love River (1957) and who probably also arranged for her to appear with him in Lady Sings the Blues, a Jeanette Lin Tsui vehicle released later that year.


Lo Wei and Chang Lye Lye in Love River (1957)
Photo from The Age of Shanghainese Pops, 1930-1970

In 1959, Chang Lye Lye had a singing cameo playing herself in Miss Songbird, with Julie Yeh Feng taking the title role. Lye Lye finally got a chance to be leading lady when Shaw Brothers invited her to shoot two Amoy-dialect films, Storm in a Teacup and I Love That Young Man. Evidently, she also taught singing classes at the studio. Around or after this time, she decided to produce, direct, and star in her own film, My Love in Malaya. According to an interview she gave the National Archives of Singapore, it won Best Film at the Malay film awards.


Chang Lye Lye (left) and Landi Chang (right) in My Love in Malaya
Click here for the full flyer

I couldn't find much information about what Chang Lye Lye did in the 60s. The online synopsis of her National Archives of Singapore interview says that she became a dance teacher at Shaw Brothers on the recommendation of director Chun Kim (who was married to Jeannette Lin Tsui, whose brother Kenneth Tsang Kong was married to Lye Lye's sister Landi Chang by this time). So it's very possible that she taught Jenny Hu how to shake her thing for her debut in Till the End of Time (1966).

Chang Lye Lye's film career ends on an odd but definitely cool note: she appears in and sings the theme song for Golden Skeleton (1967), a Cantonese "Jane Bond" film starring Josephine Siao. I've got to see that one the next time I visit the Hong Kong Film Archive!

References and Other Links
The Age of Shanghainese Pops, 1930-1970 by Wong Kee Chee
Access to Archives Online Singapore (search for Chang Lye Lye)
Cool photos of Chang Lye Lye

From the eBay Archive: Young Rock (1959)

Nearly all of the Hong Kong movie memorabilia I've acquired was found on eBay. Every day I check out the new listings of my favorite sellers. As I've said before, it's a virtual archive of valuable historical material. Of course, I can't bid on everything I want, but as a matter of routine, I save the images of items I like or find interesting. I've got a folder of more than 5,000 JPEGs: everything from flyers and magazines to photos and calendars, from the 1920 through the 60s. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to even rename the files, yet alone to organize them. Every now and then, I'll take a random peek or search for something that I once remember seeing, and I'm always surprised by what I find.

This is the first of a hopefully weekly post, where I will be featuring a random treasure from my "eBay Archive". If I have something interesting to say about the item, I will; if not, I'll just identify it (or ask for help if I can't).

OK then... here's a flyer for Young Rock (1959), starring Patricia Lam Fung (love that smile!). As always, you can click on the image for a larger version.





Patrick Lung Kong (seen on the front of the flyer) plays Lam Fung's love interest. He got his start as an actor at Shaw Brothers' Cantonese division but would make his mark as a director of edgy social exposés like Teddy Girls (1969), starring Josephine Siao as a teenage delinquent; the controversial Yesterday Today Tomorrow (1970); and The Story of a Discharged Prisoner (1967), the inspiration for John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986).

Hong Kong Leftist Noir

As promised, here's a look at a film that actress Shi Hui made for the left-wing Great Wall Motion Picture Company. These images are taken from lobby cards for The Young Heiress (1959).

According to a synopsis from the Hong Kong Film Archive's online catalog, Shi Hui plays the illegitimate daughter of a rich man. Before his death, he acknowledges her as the inheritor of his estate. The rich man's wife, aided by a group of thugs, tries to prevent Shi Hui's character from claiming her inheritance. In the end, she triumphs over the greedy wife and, desiring only the recognition as her father's daughter, donates the money to an orphanage.

The Young Heiress seems fairly typical of the crime films popular in Hong Kong cinema in the late 50s and early 60s. I've never seen the film, but I suspect that there is nothing that would mark the film as leftist beyond a generalized class consciousness. However, it would be interesting to compare it with the crime movies that the apolitical yet right-leaning Shaw Brothers was making at the time.





Here is a flyer for The Young Heiress. Notice how various images from the film stills are creatively used in the design.

The Bewitching Hsia Moon

Last weekend I was excited to discover a new blog devoted to Hsia Moon, the "Crown Princess" of Great Wall (Hong Kong's leading left-wing studio throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s). Like myself, blogmaster Dev Yang is a devoted fan of vintage Chinese cinema. He is an amateur scholar in the best sense: knowledgeable and passionate. I've already learned a lot just from his comments on my own blog, and I'm eagerly looking forward to learning more!

To celebrate Dev's new blog Hsia Moon - Glamour, Elegance, Idealism, here is a flyer for Those Bewitching Eyes (1958).



Further Reading
Biography of Hsia Moon by Paul Fonoroff

Chung Ching Movie Flyer Fiesta

Who Isn't Romantic? (1956)

I really love these movie flyers—and not just because of the way that Chung Ching strikes a pose. These flyers are also fine examples of the two-color printing process that was frequently used in the 1950s and 60s.

At first, movie flyers were just printed in black and white. Then theaters started using a single color, like red or green, instead of black, which gave the flyer a brighter, more appealing look. Although full-color printing was cost prohibitive, the creative use of two colors could result in an eye-catching design not possible with one color. Notice how the two colors are used to create the foreground of the flyer. The designs were usually collaged from publicity photos and then photoengraved for printing. I don't know whether the designers worked at the production company, the distributor, the theater, or the local printer. But I do know that, whoever they were, these unknown artists helped create a popular art form that has transcended its original, short-term commercial function. Furthermore, in cases where a movie no longer survives, flyers are sometimes the only remaining visual and historical record of a lost film.

I hope you enjoy these Chung Ching movie flyers. Be sure to click for a larger version. All of them, except the last one, were printed by Nanyang Printers Ltd of Singapore.


Love Fiesta (1957)


Love at First Sight (1958)


The Mermaid (1959)


Sweet as a Melon (1956), click here to see what's inside.

References
Ho Ying Lung. "Handbills and Their Values". Hong Kong Film Archive Treasures: An Exhibition.

Patricia Lam Fung: Sweet Girl in Terror

In my last post I wrote that Shaw Brother's second release was the Cantonese production, Sweet Girl in Terror (1958), starring Patricia Lam Fung. I was surprised to discover that it was a color film (according to the Hong Kong Film Archive's online catalog). At the time, all of Shaw's films were shot in black and white except for prestige productions like The Kingdom and the Beauty (1959), The Enchanting Shadow (1960), and Les Belles (1961), the first presented in the widescreen Shawscope format. After the completion of its film processing facilities in the fall of 1961, Shaw Brothers ramped up its color film production. That Sweet Girl in Terror was filmed in color in 1958 is proof of how big a star Lam Fung was. Indeed, she was so popular that she was known as "The Jewel of Shaw". All the more unfortunate then that Sweet Girl in Terror is the only one of Shaw's early color productions not available on DVD. I don't know why this is the case, since Sweet Girl in Terror was shown along with five other of Lam's films as part of the HKFA's "Shaws on Screen" retrospective in 2003. Whatever the reason, it's a huge loss for fans of Hong Kong cinema.

Stay tuned for more about Patricia Lam Fung in the coming weeks!

Further Reading
Shaw Studio, Hong Kong

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.