A Sorrowful Millionaire

Using the same appearance to create mistaken identities is one of the familiar tricks of the Cantonese cinema, which Mok Hong-si excels at. Lo Yau-shing (Cheung Ying) used to be a playboy, who abandoned his twin daughters. The twin sisters have grown up in different environments: Tung Mei (Patricia Lam Fung) becomes a teacher while her younger sister Tung May (also played by Patricia Lam) sings at a nightclub. The elder son of Yau-shing's older brother Yau-cheung (Ng Cho-fan) falls in love with Mei. Yau-cheung mistakes Mei for the songstress May. He goes to reproach May but is attracted to her. He attempts to stop his son from loving May while scheming to keep her to himself, which spells hilarious trouble. A Sorrowful Millionaire is the debut production of Ng Cho-fan's New Tide Film Company. Ng and his longtime collaborator Cheung Ying both play playboys in this film. Lam Fung looks especially elegant on Eastmancolor film in widescreen. Mok Hong-si is comically inspired: toward the end of the story, Wong Man-lei's character proposes an "Anti-concubine Club", anticipating a similar housewives' organization in Chor Yuen's Lovely Husbands six years later. Whether the film is an instance of the rise of female's authority or the shrinkage of male confidence in the 1960s is something to be decided by the audience.

Date	Time	Venue
4/6/2016 (Sat) #	2:00pm	Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive
26/6/2016 (Sun)	7:30pm	Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive

# Post-screening talk with Horace Chan

The contents of the programme do not represent the views of the presenter. The presenter reserves the right to change the programme should unavoidable circumstances make it necessary.