[HooDoo]

This one is pretty good too.

https://v.qq.com/x/page/v06201iqpur.html

[wasteland1952]

That was very good!  I love the reaction of the guy behind the bars.  A true catfight fan!

[catfightlover40]

I've seen the fight before, it is as hot as it was before. There's just a slight peeve of mine I have a hard time letting go... This is a Hong Kong movie, not Chinese.

The thing is, that before Bruce Lee could cash in his chips with riding the coattails of the Kato Show (known as Green Hornet in the US), and put HK cinema on the map, due to the casual racism of the crumbling colonial empires, filmmakers of Asian descent weren't that successful, and since the communist movies were a hard sell, it fell on Hong Kong to carry the burden of producing Cantonese movies for the overseas communities who were equally Cantonese speakers (and this time, subtitling between the two dialects in lack of the PRC's recognition wasn't yet really a thing either).

In the early '60s, when this movie was shot, filmmakers struggled with a direction. Many creators, who previously resided in Shanghai, which was Asian Mecca for filmmaking in the interwar period, brought their own style and experience into exile, that left its mark on Hong Kong prior to its Japanese invasion. This is to say, many of them held strong views about what the Chinese cinema must be, and that clashed with Truffault's French New Wave. I won't go into detail on how HK film financing was used to launder triad money, autobiographies from celebrities, like Jackie Chan do a better job in explaining it, suffice to say, they had cash to burn on novelties.

A movie like this, even for its time has met with harsh censorship, and I might need to look into it, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was only shown in limited release or as a B movie. If you had seen 2046 or In the mood for love, then you can remember that the previously unimportant, tiny colony (compared to the PRC) of Hong Kong has become a refugee camp for the lucky few, who could escape the PRC. That created a major housing problem, thus it wasn't all too surprising, that even moderately well off people (journalists, architects, businessmen) with their wives had to move into apartments like this one.

The older lady who breaks up the fight between them is the landlady, who usually herself lived there. Interestingly enough (for younger readers here, especially those born after the Cold War), this type of "mother superior" arrangement for young women was the same in capitalist and communist societies. Some even led books where the men had to sign in, and it wasn't uncommon for these landladies to interview the men (if they were even allowed to enter the apartment) regarding their intentions. Of course this wasn't just about chastity, rather these apartment owners wanted to avoid unplanned pregnancies, and having babies there.

Their Western négligées are an indication, that both women has long-lived in HK. I like the realism in this movie, that even though society suffered through warlords, occupation, a civil war, and officially polygamy was outlawed (yes, even Grandmaster Ip Man had more than one wife per tradition), the inclination to have a side chick beside your wife, regardless of social status, and the fact they had to live together, such meetings at the only telephone in the apartment was a constant spark for catfights.

Personally, I think in contrast with 2046, where they did shoot in an apartment, this scene is spacious enough that I lean towards sound stage.

[HooDoo]

I've seen the fight before, it is as hot as it was before. There's just a slight peeve of mine I have a hard time letting go... This is a Hong Kong movie, not Chinese.

The thing is, that before Bruce Lee could cash in his chips with riding the coattails of the Kato Show (known as Green Hornet in the US), and put HK cinema on the map, due to the casual racism of the crumbling colonial empires, filmmakers of Asian descent weren't that successful, and since the communist movies were a hard sell, it fell on Hong Kong to carry the burden of producing Cantonese movies for the overseas communities who were equally Cantonese speakers (and this time, subtitling between the two dialects in lack of the PRC's recognition wasn't yet really a thing either).

In the early '60s, when this movie was shot, filmmakers struggled with a direction. Many creators, who previously resided in Shanghai, which was Asian Mecca for filmmaking in the interwar period, brought their own style and experience into exile, that left its mark on Hong Kong prior to its Japanese invasion. This is to say, many of them held strong views about what the Chinese cinema must be, and that clashed with Truffault's French New Wave. I won't go into detail on how HK film financing was used to launder triad money, autobiographies from celebrities, like Jackie Chan do a better job in explaining it, suffice to say, they had cash to burn on novelties.

A movie like this, even for its time has met with harsh censorship, and I might need to look into it, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was only shown in limited release or as a B movie. If you had seen 2046 or In the mood for love, then you can remember that the previously unimportant, tiny colony (compared to the PRC) of Hong Kong has become a refugee camp for the lucky few, who could escape the PRC. That created a major housing problem, thus it wasn't all too surprising, that even moderately well off people (journalists, architects, businessmen) with their wives had to move into apartments like this one.

The older lady who breaks up the fight between them is the landlady, who usually herself lived there. Interestingly enough (for younger readers here, especially those born after the Cold War), this type of "mother superior" arrangement for young women was the same in capitalist and communist societies. Some even led books where the men had to sign in, and it wasn't uncommon for these landladies to interview the men (if they were even allowed to enter the apartment) regarding their intentions. Of course this wasn't just about chastity, rather these apartment owners wanted to avoid unplanned pregnancies, and having babies there.

Their Western négligées are an indication, that both women has long-lived in HK. I like the realism in this movie, that even though society suffered through warlords, occupation, a civil war, and officially polygamy was outlawed (yes, even Grandmaster Ip Man had more than one wife per tradition), the inclination to have a side chick beside your wife, regardless of social status, and the fact they had to live together, such meetings at the only telephone in the apartment was a constant spark for catfights.

Personally, I think in contrast with 2046, where they did shoot in an apartment, this scene is spacious enough that I lean towards sound stage.

Thanks for catching that, much appreciated! I always enjoy your analysis and knowledge. Definitely HK culture is distinct from the mainland. I fell into the generic "this is Chinese", when I actually know better. Thanks again for the correction.  Oh yes, Wong Kar Wai, such a great director, Fallen Angels is probably my favorite of his.

[catfightlover40]

I used to fall back on calling it as such as well, until I burrowed myself deeper into the complex relationship between cultures that adapt alien concepts (like the American) and those who assimilate (like the French, the Chinese, and other cultures lacking foreign language speakers).

I work on a series with another writer, which involves two agents during the last century, and part of its realism comes from the other writer and me actually being from those 2 worlds of days past, with much has been gone physically (like barriers), but not mentally (like the view on the role of women in society).

In a nutshell, any place can easily fall to the siren call of a dictatorship, that has never seen/was never exposed to unfettered liberation of individual expression. A key factor in understanding why so many people supported Mao is to be found in the fact, that much of the benefits of modern things to be had in China at the time were expensive, therefore it was connected to a disjointed fad of rulers, while Mao promised a return to traditional values, and while he was a bloodthirsty tyrant, he did deliver on this one.

In fact, there's a surviving (albeit to my knowledge no audio) footage of Mao himself dancing with his then-wife in the soviet they had run, where he caved to the popular demand of Western dancing, simply because their patrons against Japan, the Americans, liked to see how they became "more civilized" by adopting it. Naturally it was banned after they won the civil war. With it died everything that'd create a craving for individual freedom, like, for example, a woman showing off her body in lingerie.

That's the simple reason why this couldn't have been a movie Beijing censors would have signed off on I plan to write a scene about the Russian agent, where her cover back home is that she went to an educational outing with her department to Sochi, but in reality was in Vienna, so before she could return, she has to take a bath to remove the last faint scent of the French perfume that would reveal she was abroad.

2046 did not contain a catfight, though it had the potential to stir one up by the two women confronting the other over adultery. An additional layer is, that with the beginning of the mid-60s, the rise of Singapore, Korea and Indonesia, all benefiting from Japan's reemergence as a regional power, young wives found themselves in a position where they could ask their husbands for gifts, albeit it came from a source that used to occupy them. It's very similar to Western Europe's transformed relation to then-Western Germany, which opened up the suspicion just how cozy one could get to their former masters.