Cheung Chi-Suen

Comedy from Hong Kong directed by Chiang Wai-Kwong.

Fong Yim-fun puts on a tour de force as an ill-fated woman, separated from her lover through an arranged marriage to the terminally ill and impotent son of a warlord. The power struggle within the family led to an inevitable murderous consequence. Seven years later, the heroine's ex-lover, now an ambitious detective, is keen to solve this almost forgotten case, only to discover that he is also part of the enigma.

Hong Kong ghost movie set during wartime. Not to be confused with the South Korean film of the same name from the previous year.

Chan Siu-hung is forced to become a prostitute, with the police following hot on her heels. Ching Chi-ko comes to her defence by claiming to be her husband. Chan is put up at Ching's roof hut named the 'Seventh Heaven' and the two gradually fall in love. Soon the war breaks out. Ching is drafted to do hard labour by the Japanese army. When the war is over, the crippled Ching returns and lies to Chan that he is already a married man, hoping to persvade Chan to marry someone else. Nonetheless, Chan's devotion overwhelms Ching.

A Hong Kong drama

Kam Fan and Wong Ching-ping have a peaceful married life, until Ping's mother is serious ill. They desperately need a large amount of money. Fan tries in vain to raise money, he thus intends to use their daughter's school fees for the medical fees. Ping is against it and works as a song girl to earn money for her mother's medical expense. Her grudging husband Kam Fan uses a bed sheet to partition the bedroom into halves and even demands a divorce. After some mediation by their lawyer and neighbours, Wong finds a teaching job at an orphanage, but Fan still opposes it. Ping is so angry that she moves to live in the dormitory of the orphanage. Fan has to look after their daughter alone, making everything a mess. Later, their daughter catches a cold and has a high fever after an outing with Fan. Ping cannot set her mind at rest and goes home to take care of her daughter. The loving couple reconciles, for the sake of their daughter.

The sophistication of 1950s Hong Kong cinema is vividly illustrated in this film of limited budget and resources. Cantonese opera star Sun Ma Si-tsang plays a country boy who looks exactly like Sun Ma and is asked by a rich girl to impersonate the star, to help her stage an opera. The self-reflexive humour generated by the absurd situation not only provides delicious parody of celebrity culture but also comments subtly on class inequality and the perils of urbanisation. Sun Ma, who also appears as himself in a stage performance, is complemented beautifully by the brilliant comedian Yee Chau-shui as his sidekick and Hung Sin Nui, another opera superstar, as the spoiled and precocious rich girl.

Cold Nights features great performances by both Pak Yin as a tough minded “new woman”, Shusheng, and Ng Cho-fan as her weak husband, Wang Wenxuan, whose spirits have been crushed by the Sino-Japanese war.

'Agent Number Two' Lee Kwok-wai of the resistance troops Red Rattlesnake sets off for Guangzhou to assist Agent Number One in rescuing their comrade Pang Yau-lan from the puppet army. Lee approaches his former lover Lam Ying-tsi, the mistress and trusted aide of the puppet commander Wong Tai-wai, who has fallen prey to the lip service of the beautiful and smart songstress Pak Lai. Following the vandalism of the arsenal, Pak is quick to point the finger of blame at a spy at work. Lam combs their home for clues and finds Lee's recording devices. Furnishing Lee with misleading information, Lam has Lee and associates arrested. Pak appears to their rescue, revealing herself as Agent Number One. The dauntless spy sabotages the enemy's ammunition and communication network, captures the commander before joining her comrades to celebrate a successful withdrawal. (Synopsis based on audiovisual materials)

Lui Yik-pang is reduced to his wits' end to rein the Golden Butterfly. Chong Tak-ming emerges as the suspect. The friendship and ties between former classmates Lui and Chong date back years ago. When the impoverished Chong turned to banditry, Lui abided by the law and arrested Chong. Chong repented and bore no grudges. Chong's daughter Ching-han and Lui's son Siu-man are lovers. Ching-han reinvents herself as a chivalrous bandit and robs the rich to help the poor after the imprisonment of her father and the death of her mother. Endowed with her father's gifts, Ching-han remains out of the law's reach, until she is tailed by the father enlisted in the police service. A bitter row ensues; the father's underling Sung Sing-biu snatches the stolen goods and activates the security system. Ching-han is prepared to turn herself in when Sung surrenders himself as a gesture of gratitude to his benefactor. Attending the wedding banquet, Lui brings his son and daughter-in-law a golden butterfly.

Lai-ying (Cheng Bik-ying) is a wealthy socialite who travels globally. Tired of her lifestyle, she sends her secretary Kiu (Tam Lan-hing) to stand in for her in a social function in Hong Kong. Local rich playboy Chung (Sun Ma Si-tsang) is forced by his father (Lee Hoi-chuen) to court the fake Lai-ying in order to save the family from financial distress. But Chung is in love with the real Lai-ying, who pretends to be a poor girl from a working class background. Naturally, the father is unhappy about this mismatch. Typically cast for feisty roles, Tam Lan-hing here plays a marriage-hungry woman, eager to be seduced who knows flirtatiousness can be so hilarious!

Iron-Beaked Hen and Fatso Bo on their way to the city to help a relative out of some trouble, they run into a band of robbers. They stop over an allegedly haunted house where they save the lovers To Lok-yin and Yu Mei-yung from their attemped suicide. Hen learn their story and decide to help them out. Yin comes from a rich family, he lost his father when he was very young and was brought up by his uncle. Now that he is old enough to claim his inheritance, the guardian, his uncle, in order to keep the fortune under control, forces him to marry a girl of his choosing. The couple cannot face separation and resolve to end their lives together. Hen thinks of a way to help them, which involves Yin pretending to comply; that is, to go ahead with the marriage arrangement. On the wedding day, they swap the bride with Yung. Disguised as a matchmaker and a county official respectively, Hen and Bo reprimand To's uncle who schemes to seize To's family fortune. To and Yu marry.

The town is rumoured to be haunted. Cheung Siu-chen pretends to be possessed so that her lover Lau Tin and his friend Lee Luk may heroically exorcise the ghost and curry favour with her father. Driven by greed and lust, the attendant of the ancestral temple and his underlings cast an enticing spell on Cheung and claim that Cheung is possessed with a fierce ghost. Lau and Lee expose the hoax and redeem Cheung. Cheung's father happily gives his consent to the marriage between his daughter and Lau.

Based on a real murder case in 1930s New York Chinatown

Reporter Yu Mong-yuen is recovering from a leg injury in his fiancee Man-wah's apartment. Bored, he looks out the rear window and observes the life of the neighbouring building. Among the tenants are a sugar-daddy and his mistress, a middle-aged man wants to marry a young girl, but she is in love with his son. Finally, she hatches a plot and makes the man agree to her marrying his son ; a sly fortune-teller ; a lively gym, a rich widow quarrels with the trainer of a gymnasium because his dog has bitten her cat ; and an opera school, a woman signs, leaning on the balcony, and a man tries to strangle her. In fact they are rehearsing an opera…… One evening, Wah is on the night shift, and Yuen watches the opera troupe rehearse to the end. Under the influence of drugs, Yu mistakenly believes that a divorced man has murdered a taxi dancer. He alerts the police, but the whole thing is nothing more than a misunderstanding.

Orphan Lee Dan-hung is made a scapegoat by her cousin Chor Kwai-ping. Facing drug trafficking charges, Lee is released on parole with the doctor To King-chung as guarantor. Lee works as a sanatorium nurse. The modest caretaker, Matriarch To plays matchmaker for her son To Ngan-sing and Lee. Ashamed of her past, Lee listens to the doctor's advice and keeps the Tos in the dark. Chor returns and coerces Lee into colluding with smuggling ring by threatening to kill her newborn daughter. The reluctant Lee is arrested in a police raid together with the gang members but is later acquitted. With a reputation to defend, To toughens his heart and expels Lee. Lee leaves for Borneo with a touring opera troupe but a yearning for her daughter brings her back several years later. Feeling for the upset in-law, Matriarch To grants her stay until his son's return from business in a few months' time. When To returns, he decides to make up for the wasted time by bringing Lee and her daughter home.

Guerrilla member Ting Siu-yuen works as a playwright and Lee, the leader of an opera troupe. They conceal their identities in the troupe in order to gather military intelligence. Yuen gradually falls in love with the lead actress Mui Law-heung. Ting is unsettled to learn that County Chief Fong covets Mui. He sneaks into Fong's residence and is astounded by the sight of his old lover Pak Kuen, now Fong's wife. Fong colludes with the military chief in conducting vicious schemes. With Kuen's help, Yuen is able to get the intelligence. But as Heung is not an insider, she reports to the Governor about the illicit relationship between Yuen and Kuen. Kuen backs Yuen to eliminate the conspirators and bring about the union of Yuen and Heung.

HK horror film.

HK horror film.

A Martial Arts film by the Shaw Brothers

Fok Tats scheme to raid a convoy of government reserve is intercepted by 'Ghost Knight'. Chau Ping, an accomplice of a corrupt official, declares wars on Fok whom he believes has ties with the mysterious raider. A meeting was convened by Ghost Knight to settle the dispute. Tat's son Sze-chuen learnt that his maid Ma Yuk-lan is the daughter of a general of the ousted Ming court who has donned the mask of a knight-errant to protect the son of the Ming minister Sze Ho-fat, Sze-chuen himself. Back in Deadly Valley, an impostor of Ghost Knight was caught. Slashing at the father, Sze-chuen is disheartened to learn that the faker, Ma's mother, has been transferred to the enemy camp in a feigned surrender orchestrated by Sze while an uprising is gathering momentum funded with money robbed from the corrupt official. Ma teams up with the father and son to storm the Chau Fortress and rescue Ma's mother. The couple champions the restoration of the old empire with Sze's seal.

Yu Kwok-Kei cannot pay his debts and disguises himself as Ma Ka-Wai, his cousin Yu Lan-Fun's fiancee. He tries to kill Lan-Fun. A fisherman saves Fun. She believes that Ka-Wai was the attacker, but she can't understand why. After Fun has been missing, her family puts an announcement in the paper. Meanwhile, Chan Lan-Fong, who just comes to Hong Kong, looks like Fun and is brought to Yu's home. Fong's habits are totally different from Fun's, and she cannot recognise the family, who thinks Fun has amnesia. Fun knows that her family has mistaken somebody else for her, so she goes back home secretly and teaches Fong her habits and customs. Fong does what Fun tells her, and the family thinks that she has recovered. Kwok-Kei has a guilty conscience, so he disguises as Ka-Wai again, intending to kill Fun/Fong. But he fails and got arrested. Everybody learns that Kwok-Kei wanted to kill Fun. Moreover, Fun's mother discovers that Fong is Fun's lost twin sister and the family is reunited.