Orioles Banished from the Flowers

Among the many filmmakers who immigrated to Hong Kong after WWII was theater tycoon Jiang Boying, who established the company Great China in 1946, inviting fellow migrants to work on the first post-war Mandarin films of Hong Kong. Their hearts still anchored in Shanghai, they made films catered to the mainland market, with production modes of the former glory days. Fan Peilin, a virtuoso in musicals, was invited south to make Orioles Banished from the Flowers, dying in the crash of the returning flight. The only two films Fan made in Hong Kong–the other one Song of the Songstress–are thus his last. Both star the singing-acting superstar Zhou Xuan. In this MusCom–musical comedy–Zhou plays not the hapless songstress but a vivacious, willful youngster, rollicking between a young man and his girlfriend, resulting in a series of embarrassing but amusing situations. A remarkable sample of transplanted Shanghai-style entertainment.