Acting
Pak coek gung's family rents the third floor of a tenement building. Due to the water shortage, Pak's porridge stall is difficult to operate. At that time, Ah Seng, the son of Pak, owed money to Cheung, the fat man downstairs. Cheung saw that the porridge stall could not operate, so he took away the license of the porridge stall. In order to get the license back, Pak's daughter Miuying had to work as a dancer to pay off the debt. Then Pak's neighbors helped the porridge stall reopen and even reported Cheung for wasting water.
This early leftist social drama from Hong Kong offers a panoramic portrait of a crumbling apartment complex and its down-and-out denizens, including a taxi driver, an unemployed teacher, a professional reduced to selling his blood and, of course, a venal landlord. In addition to establishing an omnipresent theme in Hong Kong cinema – the plight of the urban poor – the film is also a prime example of the popular melodramas of the time, which featured displaced Mainland film stars.
Hong Kong war film.
Hong Kong comedy.
Hong Kong romance.
Hong Kong drama.
Historical drama.
After seeing a friend of his boss' son adopted over his promised promotion with connections, Shrimp's father, a minor white-collar worker Ng Kwun-sing, vows to get Shrimp a place in a prestigious school and a chance to make friends with the rich. However, Shrimpy is constantly bullied and discriminated against by his classmates. Ng has not the means to be a social climber and finally realises his mistake. He sends his son to a voluntary school so that he may grow up happily. This poignant father-son drama shows a parents' willingness to carve out a good future for their children by any means necessary.
Poor teacher Chan Chi-hong, his wife Lee Yuk-mei and their five children survive on his meagre pay. When he is laid off by two schools in a row, the family runs into difficulties. The children resort to begging on the streets to pay the mother's medical bills. Turning to writing, Chan's novel fails to find a publisher and, worse still, he comes down with tuberculosis. Dealt a further blow by the death of the youngest daughter and the pressures from the loan sharks, Chan contemplates killing himself and his family but changes his mind when he witnesses the sacrifices made by other parents for their children. He vows to be a dutiful father and tries his best to overcome their adversities. His novel is finally published and sells well. Through thick and thin, the family at last sees the light at the end of the tunnel.
No description available.
Hong Kong comedy horror from 1953.
Professor Lo Yeung-guo (Hou Yao) and his students escape death from the Japanese army, and call on villagers in the countryside to form a guerrillas group. His son Lo Yung (Lau Hark-suen), however, indulges in debauchery. Entrapped by the Japanese, chicken-hearted Yung leaks information about the guerrilla that leads to deaths and injuries in the group. Yeung-guo reprimands his son for being an invisible traitor, inflicting even more harm than an outright traitor. Placing righteousness before family, he decides to execute his own son. As a writer-director-actor in the film, Hou Yao proclaimed his unwavering stance on resistance on the screen, and delivered a scathing attack on the cowardly ‘invisible traitors‘ at that time. Not long after, Hou was sadly arrested and executed by the Japanese army in Singapore.
Chor Yuen started his directorial career with a bang. From its very first image, The Natural Son establishes Chor as a filmmaker of stylistic flourish, which would be sustained in various forms throughout his long tenure. Adapted from '30 cents' pulp fiction, it is a Kong Ngee melodrama made in the studio's mould, with Westernised characters and trendy middle-class lifestyles. Yet, Chor's first film is not exempt from the social urgency that characterises the Cantonese cinema of his father, Cheung Wood-yau. The film cloaks its entertainment in a moral deliberation on blood ties, its story about the raising of a bastard child a head-on challenge of archaic family values. An ostentatious start for a colourful and eventful career.
