Hong Kong Muse Fest 2022 brings the Hong Kong Museum of History, Hong Kong Film Archive and Conservation Office together to organise a crossover event, 'History x Film x Conservation – Boundless Classics'. The Archive has selected two films from its collection, both long-time fan favourites from the 1960s, Connie Chan Po-chu's signature films Girls are Flowers (1966) and The Pregnant Maiden (1968). Earlier in her career, Connie Chan usually played male roles, until Girls are Flowers when she 'transformed' back into a beautiful young lady and quickly became a youth idol. The Pregnant Maiden, one of 100 Must-see Hong Kong Movies, changed Connie Chan and Lui Kay's image from lovey-dovey romantic partners to comic quarrelsome friends. They showed their comic potentials in the film. With its fast pace and witty dialogue, today's audience would still find it enjoyable and funny. The subjects of both films are the new post-war generation. The vivacity of the films showed off the energy and excitement of the young people at the time, leading the trend of Cantonese youth films of the 1960s.

The screenings of Girls are Flowers (1966) and The Pregnant Maiden (1968) will 'crossover' to the Hong Kong Museum of History's Lecture Hall to be shown. Post-screening talks have been scheduled after both screenings. Costume Culture Researcher Edith Cheung will introduce to the audience the costumes worn by Connie Chan and share the characteristics of 1960s clothing. Through this Crossover Collaboration, we hope the audience might come into contact with and get a cursory overview of crossover culture via the museums.

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.

It is through this film that Connie Chan Po-chu firmly established her image as the 'Lovely Teenage Girl', and with Lui Kay as her steady on-screen romantic partner. An orphan girl works as a tutor for a wealthy family, and falls in love with the young master of the family who had just returned from his overseas studies. The young master, however, is forced into an arranged marriage with the daughter of a rich merchant from Singapore. This old-as-the-hills romance film plot is enlivened with the addition of director Wong Yiu's trendy and youthful elements. It broke the Cantonese black-and-white film box office record, and started the trend of youth musical films in the 1960s. Bucking the trend of the time, this film shot in numerous outdoor locations, including Chan's duel with her romantic rival at the swimming pool of a luxurious mansion, and her revelling in the 'distant blue-green hills and waters beautiful as a painting' with Lui Kay. The studio scenes are far from boring, too, including a dance party exclusively for young people. At the formal wedding scene, Chan wears a bridal gown and rides in a bridal car for the first time, showing the status of western trends in Hong Kong at the time. In stark contrast with films of the 1950s that mostly portray the hardship and sadness of people who had arrived from the mainland of China trying to eke out a living, this young woman from Macau as portrayed by Chan arrived in Hong Kong singing and dancing, full of lightness and joy.

# Post-screening talk with Edith Cheung & Priscilla Chan

Free admission. Please consult 'Muse Fest 2022' website for ticket distribution details.

This is a classic Chor Yuen x Connie Chan Po-chu x Lui Kay classic broad comedy. The lead characters get rid of their restrained, elegant idol behaviour and in a rare move show off their comic talents. Chan ang Lui are no longer in 'love at first sight' mode but get into outrageous costumes. She carries a broom and wears soda-bottle glasses to play an oddball super heroine, while he pretends to be a limping Beattle. They even resort to saliva and snot jokes in an attempt to scare off the intended counterparts of their respective parent-arranged marriages. Chan almost seemed to have returned to her fresh and playful image before she became famous. In order to hide her sister's pregnancy, she pretends to be pregnant, even asking the Lui character, who had developed a crush on her, to admit to being the guilty party, causing a string of jokes. Although they shot on various romantic dating locations such as Yucca de Lac and Shing Mun Reservoir, her naivete seems immune to the romantic atmosphere. Even with neither song-and-dance nor combat, The Pregnant Maiden is still very watchable thanks to the humorous jokes and witty dialogue brilliantly planned by director and scriptwriter Chor Yuen, who even made fun of Lui's dramatic vocal tones. Secondary characters Helena Law, Ko Lo Chuen and Yu Ming also played their parts well, adding greatly to the chemistry and the humour.

# Post-screening talk with Edith Cheung & Priscilla Chan

Free admission. Please consult 'Muse Fest 2022' website for ticket distribution details.

Connie Chan Po-chu, known affectionately as 'Movie-fan Princess', projected through her films and music an endearing and lasting image, an icon of youthful innocence and exuberance. In many of her films, she gloriously animates a way of life -- a joyful, energetic mode of living, at work or at play. She is an embodiment of Hong Kong's post-war optimism, when life was improving under economic progress. The Hong Kong Film Archive fondly and proudly presents 'Connie Iconic', a collection of precious moments from Chan's films, in which the youthful, modern and stylish side of our eternal Princess is put on magnificent display. This is a pageant of the 'igable' Connie Chan Po-chu in all her 1960s splendour.

12-13/11/2022 (Sat & Sun)
10:00am - 6:30pm

1/F Lobby, Hong Kong Museum of History