The Female Prince

A cloistered woman denied true love by status-hungry parents? Yes. A man wrongly accused of a crime? It’s in there. Wait, isn’t this the same story as The Crimson Palm, a film that came out just six weeks before The Female Prince?

For about 20 minutes, it seemed that the Shaw studio was simply going to recycle the exact same story — again — and wait for the haungmei-hungry audiences to pay to see Ivy Ling Po cry her way through a grim tragedy — again.

Thankfully, The Female Prince instead of diving deeper and deeper into tragedy escalates this plot into an entertaining farce. Every time things look bleak for our heroines, Qin Feng Xiao (Ivy Ling Po), and her maid, Chun Lan (Li Ching), they simply lie cheat and charm their way out of the hangman’s noose, smiling all the while.

And with each lie, the pair find themselves in a more improbable situation and celebrating an other unlikely success — quickly followed by a new life-threatening crisis. The more Feng Xiao lies, and the more she rebels against the gender roles that have held her back, the brighter Ivy Ling Po shines. I’ve always enjoyed Ling Po’s comedic work more than her weepie work in films like The Crimson Palm — and The Female Prince gives full rein to her mischievous skills.

Ling Po’s undeniable charm is also the film’s most curious aspect. The Female Prince was the second of two haungmei films made by director Chow Sze-Loke and scriptwriter Chang Cheh. Chow came from the world of Cantonese filmmaking, where he worked in a huge variety of genres. Chang Cheh, not yet a famous director, had just joined Shaw Brothers as a screenwriter. His first film for Shaws, The Amorous Lotus Pan was a bold break from the female-focused films that Shaw Brothers had been making; instead of sympathizing with the female lead, Chang vilifies her and champions her revenge-hungry brother-in-law Wu Song.

But in The Female Prince, clever women are put center stage, bamboozling the bumbling men that threaten them with loveless marriages — very much a return to the traditional Shaw story that Chang railed against in his film critiques. Did Chang want to show Shaw that he could write a film in their style, or did the Shaw management ask him to tone down the blood? Maybe Chang just wanted to be faithful to the story’s operatic source. Regardless of the why, comparing the films provides an intriguing contrast between the Shaw styles of the early 60s and the style that would emerge in the late 60s — and this one’s fun to watch, to boot.

The Female Prince
Dir: Chow Sze-Loke
Released: December 10, 1964