Adapted from Hollywood's Love Me or Leave Me (1955), directed by Charles Vidor and starring Doris Day, the setting of the 1920s American nightclub is changed to a rooftop amusement park in Guangzhou during the Republican era. Tso Kea, a top 1950s director, beautifully transplants the story of a singer's trials and tribulations on her road to fame onto the Cantonese opera world, making this one of Fong Yim-fun's signature films. Her character evolves from a girl with career determination to a young woman consumed by sadness, putting on display the amazing range of her acting skills. The girl starts off as an opera enthusiast, in love with a musician (Wong Chin-sui) but, desperate for fame and fortune, gravitates towards the entrapping niche of a local ruffian (Ng Cho-fan). The performance of the opera excerpt ‘The Fengyi Pavilion' by Fong and Wong is not only a delightful interpretation of a cherished scene but also an organic contribution to the film's narrative development, the love triangle in the excerpt paralleling the girl's situation. Ng offers a moving portrayal of a person handicapped both physically and emotionally, at once arrogant and domineering but also passionate and devoted. A deeply moving drama.

Courtesy of Cathay-Keris Films Pte Ltd

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