More Than Kung Fu

During the 1960s, Shaw Brothers transformed from a female-oriented film studio to a male-oriented one. The romances and operas that began the decade gave way to swordplay, spy films and war dramas.

Tho sole holdout genre from Shaw’s more feminine days was the wenyi drama — weepy romances usually adapted from novels. But as the 60s came to a close, so did the wenyi drama.

Never one to abandon an audience, the studio tried other ways to bring women to the theater. But instead of appealing to the older women that flocked to wenyi and haungmei opera, Shaw targeted teenage girls with pop musicals like Guess Who Killed My 12 Lovers.

The quality of Guess Who and other teen girl films from the early 70s indicate that Shaw didn’t put a very high priority on these films. Put simply, these films are horrible. With about 15 minutes worth of plot, Guess Who pads itself out to 90 minutes with bizarre digressions and songs that recap the silk-thin plot.

But as long as the films brought audiences into Shaw-owned movie theaters, I doubt the studio cared that much about the movie’s quality.

Poor Jenny Hu, a star that Shaw Brothers never figured out how to sell, sings and smiles her way through Guess Who, looking only mildly embarrassed to be stuck in an orange bathing suit for most of the movie. It should not come as a surprise that Guess Who was her last film with Shaw Brothers.

Guess Who Killed My 12 Lovers?
Dir: Wu Chia Hsang
Released: September 11, 1970