The House of 72 Tenants

The House of 72 Tenants

Dir/Scr: Chor Yuen
Prod Co: Shaw Brothers
Cast: Elliot Yueh Hua, Tian Qing, Hu Chin, Lydia Sum, Ivan Ho
1973 | Colour | DCP | Cantonese | Chi Subtitles | 98min

Chor Yuen single-handedly changed the face and sound of Hong Kong cinema with The House of 72 Tenants! In his remake of the 1963 co-production with Guangdong of the same title, in turn based on a comic play originally staged in Shanghai, he insisted on using Cantonese dialogue, believing correctly that the dialect better expresses the frustrations felt by ordinary citizens about social problems. He also updated the already lively use of Cantonese in the earlier film, creating line after line of clever utterances that the contemporary audience found endearing. On top of that, Chor casted television actors on contract with TVB and were thus available at cut-rate salary to production company Shaws and who had established ready rapport with the grass-roots audience. The rest is history, as the film became a surprise huge hit, reintroducing Cantonese back to Hong Kong cinema.

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Date Time Venue
26/2/2023 (Sun) # [Full House] 4:00pm Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive
11/3/2023 (Sat) * [ Additional Screening ] 4:00pm Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive

# Post-screening talk with director Teddy Robin; Moderator: Joyce Yang
* Post-screening talk with director Teddy Robin; Moderator: Sam Ho


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