The Inscrutable Heart of Women

It is not uncommon that Hong Kong cinema of the era from the end of WWII to the early 1950s resorted to handle dramas that reflected happenings of the real world without sharp demarcation on morality; characters were not simply stipulated as ‘good' or ‘evil'. In more ways than just the title (for its Hong Kong release), northern émigré But Fu's beguiling psychological drama pays homage to its Hollywood original. Pak Yin played a devoted wife to Pak Wan but the husband, trapped in his unhappy arranged marriage, pursues a romance with a songstress (Siu Yin Fei). As a gesture of reconciliation, the wife gives her blessing to the songstress taken in as a concubine, only to fatally poison her out of jealousy. Caught between feudal marriage practices of the past and a new system of free-choice marriage, the wife succumbs to the dark forces inside, her hatred fuelled by the betrayal of love and her vicious scheming driven by her dire predicament in love. Director But Fu builds up dramatic tension with liberal use of close-ups and consistent application of spatial contrast, rendering a prosaic female drama in poetic noir fashion. Pak Yin shines in a darker and more perverse role, a marked departure from her usual character repertoire.

Date	Time	Venue
12/2/2017 (Sun)	7:30pm	Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive
25/2/2017 (Sat)#	2:00pm	Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive
26/3/2017 (Sun)	2:30pm	Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive

# To follow with seminar

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.