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Austin Film Society Essential Cinema: Peking Opera Blues

Presented by Austin Film Society at Alamo Drafthouse - South Lamar

October 4, 2011

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Tuesday, October 4 at 7 PM
The Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar

 Written by Raymond To
Cinematography by Poon Hang-Sang
Edited by David Wu
Hong Kong, 1986, color, 1.85:1, 104 min.
Cast: Brigitte Lin, Cherie Chung, Sally Yeh, Kenneth Tsang, Ma Wu
Cantonese/Mandarin with English subtitles

Selecting a genre usually extolling the virtues of heroic males locked in struggle against tyranny during a civil war, University of Texas RTF graduate Tsui Hark chose three women as his fearless heroines struggling for the expansion of Sun Yat-Sen’s southern democratic republic into northern China. They all had different motivations at first: Pat Neil simply wants to act in her father’s Peking opera troupe, but as a woman she is prevented from entering the traditionally all-male profession. Sheung Hung wants to retrieve jewels she stole so she can leave China altogether. Tsao Wan, educated abroad and very androgynous in her 1920s style, could inherit her father’s military fiefdom while pretending to be male, but she is the most dedicated to the cause of liberty and democracy. Two men and a series of unexpected coincidences bring all three women together as they join in common cause. With theatrical pageantry, kung fu acrobatics, elegant figures in motion, shootouts, role playing, gender switching, and visual exuberance, PEKING OPERA BLUES is exuberant, humorous, thrilling, and inspiring. Of all the Hong Kong New Wave directors Tsui Hark was the most dedicated in constantly reimagining the scale and scope of historical epics.