Chinese Musicals from 1957 to 1963

October 19–28, 2023

We are delighted to welcome the Hong Kong film scholar Paul Fonoroff back to BAMPFA with a series highlighting Mandarin-language musicals from 1957 to 1963, during the genre’s postwar rebirth.

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The Love Eterne
Mambo Girl
A Maid from Heaven
Third Sister Liu
The Wild, Wild Rose

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Mambo Girl
Evan Yang
Hong Kong, 1957
Thursday, October 19 7 PM
Introduced by Paul Fonoroff
An effervescent Grace Chang stars as a cheery college girl who’d really rather mambo in this rollicking Hong Kong musical that introduced a new world of rock and roll, urban youth, and optimism to the genre.
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The Love Eterne
Li Han-hsiang
Hong Kong, 1963
Saturday, October 21 7 PM
Introduced by Paul Fonoroff
A girl disguised as a man falls for her classmate (who’s played by a woman) in this influential, highly theatrical musical opera, the highest grossing Chinese-language film of the era. A cinema of pure artifice, an Ang Lee favorite, and “the jewel in Shaw Brothers’ illustrious crown” (Brian Hu).
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A Maid from Heaven
Ho Meng-hua, Chen Yi-hsin
Hong Kong, 1963
Sunday, October 22 7 PM
Introduced by Paul Fonoroff
A fairy from heaven descends to Earth and finds love with a mill owner’s servant in this blend of fantasy film and Chinese huangmei diao musical opera, featuring Ivy Ling Bo as the male lead and some charming special effects.
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Third Sister Liu
Su Li
China, 1960
Digital Restoration
Thursday, October 26 7 PM
Introduced by Andrew F. Jones
A tune-filled, rabble-rousing farm girl incites the masses against greedy landowners—through a singing competition!—in this wildly entertaining Communist musical, filled with anti-capitalist throw downs and set amidst Guangxi’s stunning limestone cliffs and riverways.
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The Wild, Wild Rose
Wong Tin-lam
Hong Kong, 1960
Saturday, October 28 7 PM
Introduced by Weihong Bao
Hong Kong icon Grace Chang stars as a hot-tempered nightclub temptress surrounded by bad love, bad men, and a worse fate in this fevered film noir musical of cigarettes, songs, and flair to burn. “One of the best films in the history of Hong Kong cinema” (Hong Kong Film Archive) and a Tsai Ming-liang favorite.
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Chinese Musicals from 1957 to 1963

October 19–28, 2023

We are delighted to welcome back to BAMPFA film expert Paul Fonoroff with a series highlighting Mandarin-language musicals from 1957 to 1963, during the genre’s postwar rebirth. By the mid-1950s, Hong Kong was beginning to stabilize economically, with a new optimistic urban middle class anxious to see their lives reflected on screen; at the same time, nostalgia for the mainland and traditional Chinese culture remained.

This series showcases the films that emerged from these desires—whether in visions of intoxicating city life, such as the city hipsters in Mambo Girl and nightclub lounge lizards in The Wild, Wild Rose, or in throwbacks to Chinese fables and courtly operas, such as the star-crossed lovers of The Love Eterne and the celestial princesses of A Maid from Heaven. The latter are two of the greatest examples of the widespread huangmei diao film genre, which updated classic Chinese staged opera with modern cinematic aesthetics and a decorative, almost pulpy embrace of theatrical artifice. We also pay tribute to a mainland Communist musical whose distinct style proved popular in Hong Kong: the cheerfully tuneful, anti-capitalist Third Sister Liu, set in the striking limestone karst waterways of Guangxi.

These five films also reveal a who’s who of postwar Hong Kong’s greatest stars, especially the songstress Grace Chang, who switches effortlessly from bubbly youth in Mambo Girl to jaded nocturnal temptress in The Wild, Wild Rose, and Ivy Ling Po, a mainstay of the huangmei diao genre famed for playing male leads in both The Love Eterne and A Maid from Heaven.

—Jason Sanders, Film Notes Writer

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Film Series Sponsors: Matt and Margaret Jacobson

Copresented by the C. V. Starr East Asian Library and guest curated by Paul Fonoroff, this series is made possible by support from the Jacobson Family Foundation for Fonoroff’s annual campus residency and The Paul Kendel Fonoroff Collection for Chinese Film Studies at the C. V. Starr East Asian Library. Thanks to our colleagues at the Hong Kong Film Archive and China Film Archive, as well as faculty members Weihong Bao and Andrew F. Jones, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Peter Zhou, director and assistant university librarian, C. V. Starr East Asian Library, and the College of Letters and Science, UC Berkeley.