*1965 - Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore (Shaw Brothers)
[Hong Kong production also partly filmed in the Philippines and Singapore, Hong Kong release date 15th September 1965. Released in the Philippines on 18th June 1967 by Asia Film Exchange as “Manila, Hongkong, Singapore”]
Director/Screenplay Ching Doe** [=Doe Ching***] Producer Run Run Shaw Cinematography Shao-Yung Tung [=Charles Tung Shao-Yung] Music Eddie Wang [=Eddie H. Wang Chi-Ren] Composer: Theme Music Joseph Koo [=Joseph Koo Ka-Fai] Lyricist Hua Shen Editor Hsing-Lung Chiang [=Chiang Hsing-Lung] Sound Recordist Yung-Hua Wang [=Wang Yonghua] Art Director Johnson Tsao [=Johnson Tsao Chuang-Sheng] Assistant Director Shih-Ling Wen [=William Wen Shi-Ling] Makeup Artist Yuen Fang [=Fong Yuen] Credits Designer Ching Ou [=Au Ching]
MUSICAL/ROMANTIC COMEDY
*mp4 file [in Mandarin with no subtitles; credits are also in Mandarin, so these credits have been compiled from the IMDB and HKMDB]
**Anglicized spelling from the IMDB
***Anglicized spellings in square brackets from the HKMDB]
Manila A La Mod: The Pan-Asian Pop Pourrie of Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore by Andrew Leavold
It took a long time to track down Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore (1965) but it was worth the effort. For me it was a missing piece in the story of the Philippines’ relationship with the rest of Asian film, as well as a fascinating artifact from the Golden Age of Pan-Asian cinema in general: a time when the Shaw Brothers owned theatres all over East Asia, were transporting their centre of production from their studios in Singapore to Hong Kong as well as beginning their move into cinemas in Hawaii and mainland USA, and were more synonymous with bright, breezy Technicolor musicals and romantic comedies than their later sword and martial arts extravaganzas. Films like Les Belles (1961) The Dancing Millionairess (1963) and The Lark (1964) were massive hits all over Asia, reflecting a colourful collision between Asian tradition and global monoculture.
The Shaw Brothers were no strangers to the Philippines either. As far back at the late Fifties the Shaws, then based primarily in Singapore, were regularly using Filipino directors such as Lamberto V. Avellana, Ramon A. Estella and Rolf Bayer on their Malay productions, as they considered them amongst the greatest filmmakers in Asia. By the mid-Sixties, however, the over-all quality of Philippine films had slipped; the dominance of the Big Three studios (LVN, Sampaguita Pictures and Premiere Productions) was on the wane, their superior factory-crafted productions to be replaced with an avalanche of derivative spy films and westerns from hungry independent producers. Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore (or HKMS) finds both the Shaws and the Philippines at a crossroad: for the former, between the musical romances of the early Sixties, and action-centric films after the phenomenal success of their Come Drink With Me (1966); for the latter, in the midst of a kind of Dark Age before its cinematic Renaissance in the Seventies. And perhaps more than the Shaws’ other films, and certainly mirroring the company’s cross-border and cross-cultural inclinations, HKMS also sees the Hong Kong powerhouse at its most cosmopolitan.
Cultural purists were still catered to by the Shaws with a large slate of period dramas and operas, untainted by the rest of the world’s decadent preoccupation with British rock’n’roll, American sports cars and European modular furniture. But those with a taste for the international and the hip, happening sights and sounds of NOW (followed by several exclamation marks!!!), there are those bright and bubbly musical comedies, of which HKMS is just one. Directed by Ching Doe, one of the genre’s undisputed specialists, it features his regular Peter Chen Ho, Shaw’s gangly, endearingly awkward leading man in most of their musicals, as a Cathay Pacific pilot with a jet set version of “a girl in every port”. He leaves his tearful Filipina sweetheart Lilia (Maggie de la Riva) at Manila International Airport and flies into Hong Kong, to be greeted by his local squeeze Angela Yu Chien (previously opposite Peter in Ching Doe’s The Dancing Millionairess). Then he’s onto Singapore, and into the welcoming arms of Shirley (Landi Chang – also in The Dancing Millionairess), a singer in a rock group. Suddenly Lilia turns up in Hong Kong, as does Shirley, and all three women are at his door expecting a sparkly rock on their fingers.
Most of the film’s at-times frantic, other times painfully thin farce is centred on Peter, with the help of his conspiratorial co-pilot Pao (Chin Feng), trying to keep the three women apart. There are some genuinely brilliant comedic moments from Peter being paraded in front of Shirley’s extended family, and dealing with Lilia’s millionaire father (Alfonso Carvajal) - the expression on Peter’s face after he shows him 8mm footage of a plane crash is priceless! But with all the running from one apartment room to another, not to mention one bed and one dolly bird to another, HKMS resembles an Oriental version of the Jerry Lewis-Tony Curtis comedy Boeing Boeing (released later in 1965), which gets a little tiring for everyone, and you start looking forward to the next musical number which, sadly, are few and far between.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not out to denigrate HKMS. Being one of the Shaw Brothers’ mid-shelf contemporary musicals it’s brimming with all of the things that went “pop!’ in 1965. We’re talking bouffant hair, the dresses, the stunning mid-Sixties furniture and fittings, the ultra-modish bar and restaurant sets, the zippy jazz and Beatles-inspired beats alongside traditional Hong Kong love songs, as well as an animated credit sequence straight out of a Blake Edwards comedy, and the cumulative effect is a mildly intoxicating cocktail of East and West. It just needs more. More glimpses of the three countries’ scenery – the Philippines, for instance, is reduced to a few exterior shots of Manila International Airport, with the rest of the “Filipino” scenes filmed at Shaw Brother Studios – and most definitely more than its two musical numbers to liven up the single-minded (and simple-minded!) bedroom farce.
The Shaws certainly chose their Filipino cast well: Miss Manila, Maggie de la Riva, was a popular mestiza leading lady in Tagalog films from the early Sixties, and she certainly holds her own against the other two Hong Kong beauties. Sadly her career was tragically derailed in 1967 when she was abducted and raped by four rich kids. They were eventually executed in 1972, but only after an intense press campaign laying bare every sordid detail of the crime AND of Maggie’s life. She was finally dragged out of retirement by Carlo J. Caparas, a specialist in lurid tabloid biopics, after he directed The Maggie de la Riva Story: God...Why Me? (1994) and paraded in front of his cameras in another tasteless rape-recreation from the Sixties, The Anabelle Huggins- Ruben Ablaza Story Tragedy: Mea Culpa (also 1995). The Pinoy actor playing her father, Alfonso Carvajal, was also a recognizable character actor, perhaps best known outside the Philippines for his role as tribal chieftan in the Eddie Romero shocker Beast Of Blood (1970). Local box office giants Eddie Mesa and Nestor de Villa are also listed on the Filipino ad, which suggests its distributor Asia Film Exchange shot extra scenes for the Philippines only. If a print of “Manila, Hongkong, Singapore” is ever unearthed, I’m sure this mutant Filipino twin will be a revelation!
Meanwhile its Mandarin counterpart, unlike most of its Sixties’ contemporaries, has yet to receive a physical release on either DVD or Blu-Ray, and only appeared once without English subtitles on a Shaw Brothers hard drive of its lesser-known titles. It must have been a reasonable success to inspire a virtual remake in 1968 called Three Swinging Girls, with Chin Feng (Peter’s co-pilot in HKMS) as the booby in the middle. But until the time that Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore is dusted off the shelf and given the deluxe treatment by the Shaws’ new owners Celestial Pictures, it will remain a minor but by no means substandard sparkler.
Landi Chang (Shirley)
Angela Yu Chien (Yeh Feng)
Maggie de la Riva (Lilia Ramos)
Alfonso Carvajal (Lilia's Father, Mr Ramos)
Chin Han/Han Chin** (Dana's Boyfriend)
Chiang Kwang-Cho/Kuang-Chao Chiang** [=Chiang Kuang-Chao] (Shirley's Brother 7 Sha)
Chao Sin-Yen/Hsin-Yen Chao** [=Chiu Sam-Yin] (Feng Hsiu Lan)
Feng Chin [= Chin Feng] (Chang Pao Lo)
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Ying Lee [=Li Ying, seated] (Shirley's Father; HKMDB lists him as Shirley’s Uncle)
Yunzhong Li [=Lee Wan-Chung] (Doctor)
Yu Pai (Yeh Feng's Maid)
Feng Tien [=Tien Feng, left] (Shirley's Brother 1; HKMDB lists him as Shirley’s Father)
Violet Pan Ying-Zi [right] (Stewardess Dana)
THEATRICAL
HONG KONG – released into Shaw-owned theatres from 15th September 1965
TAIWAN – IMDB reports a Taiwan release on 31st December 1966
DIGITAL
HONG KONG - released on a hard drive of vintage Shaw Brothers titles by Celestial Films around 2010
- mp4 file [in Mandarin with no subtitles]
