Tonight and Every Night

Dir: Chan Pei
Orig Story: Tong Tik-sang
Scr: Chan Wan
Prod Co: Sun Luen
Cast: Tang Bik-wan, Leung Mo-sheung, Leung Sing-po, Leung Suk-hing, Lo Duen
1956 / B&W / D Beta / Cantonese / 103min

Born to misogynous fathers and subservient mothers in two superstitious families, Lo-kiu (Leung Mo-sheung) and Po-wan (Tang Bik-wan), one born a boy and the other a girl, were both raised as the opposite sex. The two meet, see through each other's disguises and fall in love but with their respective arranged marriages looming over their heads. They must outrun their doomed destiny by hatching a plan… This gender-bending comedy is adapted from Tong's original opera starring Ho Fei-fan and Tang Bik-wan. The plot, by turns farcical and satirical, pits Leung against Tang, two of the greatest comediennes excelled in cross-dressing roles, where the dichotomies of feminine and masculine, queer and straight, are challenged and reconstructed. Written with a piercingly sharp pen in great comic strokes, Tong's libretto took on a new lease of life on the screen.