Pleasure Daughter

Pleasure Daughter is adapted from a popular radio drama serial written by Chiang Sing. The total length of the serial ran over 45 hours. In condensing the original materials into a feature-length screenplay, Mok Hong-si demonstrated great skills of economy and precision. Also, during filming, most of the lead actors had very tight working schedule – this posed another tough task for Mok to deliver the film on time and within budget. The film's two protagonists, Loi-hei (Fong Yim-fun) and Wong-choi (Cheung Wood-yau), both work for Master Chim (Auyeung Kim) and his wife (Lam Mui-mui) as servants. Being similar in age and class, they begin to fall in love. However, when their exploitative and gluttonous masters learn that Loi-hei is going to inherit one million US dollars, they immediately start to plan and manipulate Loi-hei's wedding as a means of cheating her inheritance. With the help of their brother (Leung Sing-po), the Chims use all ways of hook and crook, involving arranged marriage, concubine-hood, and god-parenthood to win Loi-hei's affection. But these efforts all turn into futility as the inheritance cannot be materialised in the end. The film begins with the public's obsession with lottery which represents the working-class people's fantasy of easy money, and the ending reinstates the moral that money is not everything. This running theme is succinct and without being didactic. But finally, one has to admit that the most pleasurable thing of the film is the performance of Fong Yim-fun who unwittingly displays a sense of rare accurate comic timing throughout the film. Her scenes with Leung Sing-po are absolutely hilarious.

Date	Time	Venue
5/6/2016 (Sun) #	7:30pm	Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive
24/6/2016 (Fri)	7:30pm	Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive

# Post-screening talk with Honkaz Fung

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.