poster for The Boxer’s Omen (1983)
78 notes
·
View notes
I really like this photo. ❤️ I need to put words on it or give it a title. It looks like it’d be a nice art house/independent film starring Jackson Wang. 😂 it’s actually a photo from his tour. But for some reason it stopped me in my tracks.
47 notes
·
View notes
Five Days of Yam-Pak Movies ~ Bonus: Madam Yun // 芸娘 (dir. Chu Kea/珠璣, 1960) - starring Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙)
Click below for more information + some commentary!
Outline & Scene Summary
Inspired by Shen Fu/沈復's Qing Dynasty autobiography Six Records of a Floating Life/浮生六記. Madam Yun focuses on Shen Fu (Yam Kim Fai) and his wife Yun (Pak Suet Sin), who live in married bliss with their children at the former’s familial home. However, they fall foul of the machinations of Shen Fu’s younger half-brother, who has designs on the inheritance, and are summarily kicked out. The young family struggle to adjust to their poverty, but their plight is worsened by Yun becoming chronically ill; these desperate straits result in Shen Fu having to leave his family behind in search of paying work. Thankfully, after all his efforts he is able to find a benefactor, and the family is reunited under one roof (which is, sadly, not what happened in real life).
In this early scene depicting the calm before storm, Shen Fu is trying to write a poem, but struggles to find the right words to finish off a line. As he is musing, his wife sneaks up and writes in her own suggestion, delighting him with her scholarly wit.
Although the movie as a whole is pretty dour, the first few scenes really stood out to me as a lovely (if inadvertent) depiction of an F/F couple being happily married with children, especially as Pak’s character is not reduced to being a mere mother or housewife, and the focus remains on the love between the pair. It’s also notable that the source material is known for being a rare depiction of a loving marriage in Chinese literature, and the earlier 1954 film adaptation specifically cast two actors who frequently played married couples (namely Cheung Wood-Yau/張活游 and Pak Yin/白燕; see source). The casting of Yam-Pak for this movie indicates that the studio was confident the public would embrace them as not only a romantic pairing, but specifically the ideal of a married couple.
Note: Six Records of a Floating Life is very much worth reading, not only because it's a vividly-drawn portrait of everyday life in 19th-century China (floral arrangements! exam LARPing! complaining about how touristy Hangzhou's West Lake is!), but also because it contains queer elements. There are references to Yun having a relationship with another woman (and asking her husband to take her on as a concubine, lol) and being attracted to other women, none of which are mentioned in this movie.
Links:
My post about Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin being queer icons
Full movie on Youtube
4 notes
·
View notes
Carina Lau and Jacky Cheung behind the scenes of Days of Being Wild (1990)
79 notes
·
View notes