Sweet and Wild
With this I believe I have now seen the entirety of the Folk Musical genre. At least the ones released by Shaw Brothers. I have no idea if anyone else made any of these. I’d be surprised.
What a weird genre. The whole thing is built on an unremitting disdain for western youth culture and celebration of traditional Taiwanese fishing villages. These two cultures never come to any sort of grudging respect. There’s never a “Well, I hate your hip-shaking rock’n’roll music, but dammit I respect you” moment. Youth culture is bad, full stop.
Even more odd is that each of these movies was written and directed by different people. Unlike, say, Haungmei Diao, where a few directors did all of the work, each folk musical had a different creative team. Yet they are all so eerily similar. I can only assume that they were either modeled after an existing genre that I’m unfamiliar with, or Run Run Shaw had a brief fixation on Taiwanese fishing villages.
The plot here is much the same as the others; a rural woman and a fisherman fall in love. And that love is proven in a series of singing battles built on improvisation, wit and puns. There are misunderstandings and complications that keep our heroes apart until the end. It’s frothy rom-com musical stuff, which makes all the weirder when the Youth Culture gang shows up with knives and starts sexually assaulting our lead. Remember, youth culture is bad!
Other than the real weird rapey bits, it’s a perfectly fine folk musical. It might actually be the best of the bunch. Li Ching is a lot of fun, Ling Yun is broody and handsome, the villains are ridiculous and frequently just start playing rock music out of nowhere. If you want to see a folk musical and don’t mind sexual assault being treated like a fun goof, then this is probably the one to watch.
Director Wu Chia-Hsiang, in his first Shaw Brothers film, worked more as an actor than director. But he’s one of the 5 (?!) credited directors of The Magic Lamp, one of the few non-Shaw haungmei diao films that people still talk about.
Considering this film’s demonization of youth culture, it’s slightly ironic that Wu Chia-Hsiang would spend the rest of the 60s at Shaws directing youth-focused modern musicals and dramas.
Ian Whitney
Published: 2024-09-26