Madame Caterpillar

Beyond the Great Wall. During the Han Dynasty, there lived an Emperor named Yuan Ti with a harem as big as all the Playboy clubs. He tried manfully to give all his wives the personal touch, but there were so many he never got around to meeting them all. To remedy the situation, his highness had a court painter limn pictures of the girls, then present the likenesses to him. Those that passed the silk-screen test got to play the palace.

But the painter, though a good artist, was a bad man who demanded bribes from the girls and painted only those who had a yen for him. When the most beautiful candidate of them all (Lin Dai) refused to pay him, he painted an ugly picture of her, and it was three years before the Emperor accidentally ran across her.

At that point, this Chinese film becomes suddenly and inscrutably Oriental. Gongs ring! Girls sing! Emperor excited! Girl delighted!

Is it the end?

Not quite.

The perfidious painter escapes to the Huns on the other side of the Great Wall. There he shows the Khan a lifelike picture of the girl, persuades him to assemble his army and demand her hand. To save her country, the girl nobly leaves her Emperor, journeys to the Huns and presents herself to the Khan.

Chorus weeps! Music leaps!

Khan glad! Emperor sad!

End?

Not quite.

First, the painter has to be caught and executed. Then the girl takes one look at the Hun's ugly head and horde, decides that she can never share his bed and board, and throws herself into the ocean.

Cymbals clang! Drums bang! Orientals confused! Audience bemused!

End.

Though the plot is often opaque, and the narrative constantly interrupted by choruses abusing their freedom of screech, viewers cannot claim that the film makers are deliberately obscure. The remotest aside is painstakingly translated into Chinese and American subtitles. When someone laughs, the title below reads

Ha! Ha!

The picture nonetheless remains a hysterical hybrid of cinema and opera, a Chinese fever dream of Madame Butterfly when she was just a caterpillar. Still, it is a heartening affirmation that Hong Kong is holding out against the gongs and tongs of its mainland enemies. In their island bastion, Producer Run Run Shaw and his sibling Run Me grind out 40 such Chinese films a year, have become so successful that they now own the biggest show-business empire in Asia. Their movies may be tragedies, but with 132 movie houses and seven amusement parks, the Shaws continue to enjoy the last laugh. !

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.