Lan Kwong Comedies

The Diary of a Husband (2K Digital Version)

Dir/Scr: Chor Yuen
Orig Story/Scr: Ching Suet-mun (aka Yeung Po-hei)
Prods: Tang Kit-chun, Wong Cheuk-hon
Prod Co: Lan Kwong
Cast: Ting Ying, Cheung Ying-choi, Keung Chung-ping, Lam Yim, Lam Bun
1964 | B&W | DCP | Cantonese | 103min

Shun (Cheung Ying-choi), Lun (Cheng Kwan-min), Long (Yu Ming) and Ming (Lam Bun) are four friends working for the same company. Their boss Tin (Keung Chung-ping) is lustful yet fears his wife. Tin often tries to take advantage of Japanese translator (Lam Yim), but the four friends stop him in time. Shun’s wife, influenced by the other wives, mistakenly believes her husband is disloyal. The script is adapted from an extremely popular Commercial Radio airwave novel of the same title, and written by the original author Ching Suet-mun. The actor playing Shun in the airwave novel, famous broadcaster Lam Bun, appears onscreen in the role of Ming. The film is riotously funny and yet realistic, portraying the urban working lives of white-collar workers in the 1960s, where the traditional family structure and relationships have been replaced by nuclear families, colleagues and friends. Chor Yuen shows off his ability to manoeuvre a large ensemble cast to create exciting and lively scenes. Character actors such as Lee Hong-kum and Helena Law Lan gave outstanding performances. The same year, Chor Yuen directed The Diary of a Husband, Part Two (1964) for another company. In 1988, he remade the film with the support of Tsui Hark. It can be seen that the popularity of this story is tremendous.