Unfinished Melody
In Unfinished Melody’s love triangle of young doctor Hu Zhong Ning (Kwan Shan), heartbroken depressive Xiu Xin (Julie Yeh Feng) and eager third wheel Yu Bei (Essie Lin Chia), the glory goes to whose willing to sacrifice, deny, and suffer the most. Unlike US tearjerkers that usually lionize those who suffer the burdens thrust upon them, Unfinished Melody cheers those who thrust the burdens onto themselves.
In many ways, Unfinished Melody was the last gasp of a genre that had run its course in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. I call them tearjerkers or melodramas, but they’re frequently called wenyi, or “literary melodrama.” Adapted from inexpensive novels, usually set in the modern day and frequently about sacrifice and love, the genre was the mainstay of Shaw’s main competitor, MP & GI. Shaw Brothers produced a fair number of wenyi, but by 1958, when the Shaw Brothers studio emerged, many of the genre’s classics had already been made by MP & GI.
So Shaws did what most business would do, hire away MP & GI’s best talent and make their own wenyi, which they did quite successfully through the 1960s. But by 1969 other genres had become more profitable and the stars Shaws had hired away were nearing the end of their careers. Julie Yeh Feng spent most of her critically-loved career at MP & GI, only moving over to Shaw Brothers in the mid-60s. By 1969, her time in movies was nearing its end. She would have one more leading role in 1970’s Farewell My Love.
Director Chin Chien (his romanized name in Mandarin, which I think he only used on Shaw Brothers productions. It’s more common to see his name written as Chun Kim) was a high-profile director, although not from MP & GI, that made his name at Shaw’s with wenyi films like Rose, Be My Love and Till The End Of Time. His career was nearly over as well; he would commit suicide in late 1969.
Chin Chien tries to spice up the familiar wenyi formula, adding sudden zooms, close-ups and pans. But the paring of dynamic visuals and a stale story is uneasy. Unfinished Melody is the end of the wenyi song at Shaw Brothers. By the early 70s, the genre would largely disappear from the Shaw schedule.
Ian Whitney
Published: 2005-03-06