Mambo Girl

(Manbo nulang)

  • Introduction

    Paul Fonoroff is an expert on Chinese cinema who lived for years in Hong Kong and is currently based in Bangkok.

featuring

Grace Chang, Peter Chen Ho, Kitty Ting Hao, Liu En-jia,

An effervescent Grace Chang stars as a cheerful college girl who’d really rather mambo in this rollicking crowd-pleaser, which abandoned the Hong Kong musical’s then-typical tropes of tragic operas, doomed lovers, and courtly or rural settings in favor of a ferociously modern, upwardly bound world of urban youth and rock and roll. Wielding the high-wattage smile and voice that made her a musical superstar, Chang implores everyone to “dance, dance as crazy as I am”; even a potentially maudlin subplot, and its whiff of old-school poverty, doesn’t stand a chance. She’s gamefully accompanied by Peter Chen Ho, an omnipresent Cary Grant/Rock Hudson figure of the genre.

Jason Sanders
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Evan Yang
Cinematographer
  • Charles Tung Shao-yung (Dong Shaoyong)
Language
  • Mandarin
  • with English electronic titling
Print Info
  • B&W
  • Digital
  • 96 mins
Source
  • Hong Kong Film Archive
Permission
  • Cathay-Keris Films Pte. Ltd.

Event Accessibility

If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 642-1412 (during open hours) with as much advance notice as possible. More information on accessibility services.