Operation Lipstick

Following the worldwide popularity of the James Bond movies, Hong Kong produced a wave of spy caper films in the 1960s, capitalising on the genre’s action and suspense. In Operation Lipstick, however, Inoue Umetsugu places less emphasis on action, using the spy plot as the framework for a romantic comedy, with song-and-dance elements woven into the story. Li Bing (Cheng Pei-pei) works as a cabaret entertainer, having left behind her former life of crime as the daughter of a master thief. One day, her former junior partner comes to her for shelter when he is pursued for stealing a wallet, inadvertently dragging her into an international spy war. The wallet leads to a key, then a lion statue, and finally a roll of microfilm—the object of desire for rival agents and triads alike, functioning as a classic Hitchcockian MacGuffin.

Despite the espionage plot, Inoue turns even the action into comedy, as seen in Li Bing’s encounters with three murderous banjo players and two enemy agents in a Turkish bathhouse. Meanwhile, her witty and playful exchanges with her reluctant partner (Paul Chang Chung), a freelance operative, gradually blossom into romance. Cheng’s comic talents are already on full display here, proving that there was no need to wait until Flirting Scholar (1993), made a quarter of a century later, to see her shine in comedy.

Date	Time	Venue
30/10/2026 (Fri)	11:00am	Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive

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