Shaw Brothers

The Five Billion Dollar Legacy

Director Inoue Umetsugu, who delivered stylish Shaw Brothers musicals like Hong Kong Nocturne and King Drummer (which hasn’t yet been re-released on DVD, but I’ve seen clips that look fantastic), serves up this not-particularly-stylish, only occasionally interesting and excessively-plotted “horror” movie.

Three women, all living in Hong Kong, receive letters from their heretofore unknown father, a wealthy Chinese businessman who has settled into a spooky bell-tower under the shadow of Mount Fuji. Near death, the repentant Lin wants to meet his daughters and give them a part of his fortune.

The women, the blind-but-strong Peng Jing Xian (Margaret Hsing Hui), the nice girl Situ Pei Fang (Wong Ping) and the slutty con artist Li Rong Rong (Gwok Maan Loh), all head for Japan. And, in one of those only-in-movies moments, meet each other for the first time on the plane, where they are all sitting in the same row. “Oh, you’re going to Japan to meet your wealthy father? What a coincidence, so am I!”

Once in Japan, ugly blotches appear in the women’s rags-to-riches fantasy. Their arrogant half-brother Peter wants them to leave—or that’s what he says when he’s not trying to seduce and/or rape them. (side note: it’s interesting that unlikable characters in Shaw Brothers films frequently sport English names) Even worse, a sudden change in the will leaves all the money to Peter and a ghost begins haunting the isolated home.

After a lengthy plot involving blackmail, nude scenes, jealous boyfriends, murder, attempted murder, vehicular assault, squeaky shoes, sign language, forced marriage and triple-crossing criminals (really, this is far more plot than should be shoe-horned into a 90-minute film) the bad guys are taken care of and the women, who never really wanted the money, just the love of a father, head back to Hong Kong.

Trapped in the drab set of Lin’s countryside manor, Inoue Umetsugu can deploy little of his visual flair or love of colors. And, although parts of the film appear to have been filmed in Japan, most of it is stuck in the studio, bereft of atmosphere, which is the feature necessary to horror films that Five Billion Dollar Legacy most lacks.

The Five Billion Dollar Legacy
Dir: Inoue Umetsugu
Released: March 19, 1970

Lady Jade Locket

Between 1960, when Shaw Brothers released Enchanting Shadow, its first supernatural romance, and 1967, when they released Lady Jade Locket, much had changed. Shadow was little more than a romance with badly-executed supernatural elements fused on. Lady Jade Locket integrates its romantic sighs and spooky frights, resulting in a more entertaining film.

On the run from a corrupt government official, Yang Yue Wei (Li Li-Hua, whose casting as a man in a non-Haungmei film suggests the popular of the opera genre) seeks refuge in an abandoned school. There, he meets Lian Suo (Li Ching), the ghost of a woman who died while avenging her father’s murder.

Yang, pursued by bounty hunters, and Lian, chased by the official of the netherworld, quickly fall in love; but the unbridgeable gap between the living and the dead complicates their romance.

Also complicating matters are the films half-dozen sub-plots. The basic story, comes from Pu Songling’s Tales From A Chinese Studio and had been made once before by Shaw & Sons studio in 1954. But Lady Jade Locket ditches much of the original tale, replacing it with political intrigue and wuxia-esque heroes. Overstuffing a simple film with twists, turns and diversions is not a problem specific to Shaw Brothers; but the studio was certainly plagued by the problem in the late 1960s.

Towards the end of the film, when the action shifts to the world of the dead, the film begins to experiment, featuring notably spooky and synthie music and twisted camera positions to capture the devious officials of Hell. These are the film’s highlights, and point the way to the torrent of supernatural films to come in the late 70s and early 80s. Tsui Hark may have used the tale of Enchanting Shadow for Chinese Ghost Story, but he used the spirit of Lady Jade Locket.

Lady Jade Locket
Dir: Yan Jun
Released: December 9, 1967

Enchanting Shadow

If this movie used any more Theremin music, it would have exploded in a spooky, tonal mess. Theremin abuse, along with the overused “howling wolf” sound effect, make it pretty clear that Shaw Brothers was coping US style for their first (to my knowledge) horror film.

However, it’s a classic example of HK films using a style without understanding the reasons behind the style; when Enchanting Shadow combines the Theremin music and the wolf effect it goes beyond coping and jumps directly to hilariously misguided.

Frights, of course, don’t reside in the music or the sound effects, but in the timing and the execution. Shadow’s scare shots largely fall flat, giving away the “jump” far too early and the make-up effects are far behind the work being done at Hammer studios.

While Shaw may not have known horror, they certainly knew romance; the tender moments between Ning Chai Chen (Zhao Lei) and Nieh Hsiao Chien (Betty Loh Ti), especially their poetry recitals, are far more effective than the un-spooky frights.

Enchanting Shadow’s story was also used for 1986’s A Chinese Ghost Story, starring Leslie Cheung and Joey Wong (sometimes listed as Joey Wang). The Tsui Hark-produced film is far more effect-laden and plays up the supernatural aspects. Shadow, either for technical or aesthetic reasons, doesn’t care too much about the supernatural. The villainous ghosts look more like a bingo club than man-eating tree demons.

Hark also tries to end the film with a bang, staging a battle against the royalty of the underworld. Shadow avoids such excesses and lets the romance carry the tale. Both are films of their times; Tsui Hark would have been as hard-pressed making a tender romance in 1986 as Li Han-hsiang would have been making a effects-laden over-the-top blockbuster in 1960.

Enchanting Shadow Released: August 8, 1960 Director: Li Han-hsiang HKmdb