After talking to a friend about what Jackie Chan flicks he has recently seen,I decided to check his IMDb page. Going right the way back to his earliest credits,I was excited to find that the first appearance of Chan's I could track down was as a uncredited extra in this Shaw Brothers operetta,which led to me finding out how eternal love can be.

View on the film:

Tragically killing herself at just 30 years old,Betty Loh Ti, (whose family fled to Hong Kong after the Communist takeover in China) gives an exquisite performance as Zhu Ying-tai,whose dream of entering higher education is captured with wide-eyed wonder by Ti, knotted with a sweet nervousness over her identity being discovered. Becoming entwined with Shan-bo,Ti holds the petals of their love with a passionate sincerity and a deep anguish over missing Shan-bo's embrace. Whilst the characters inability to see Ying-tai is not a boy is strange, Ivy Ling Po presents the full vision of Shan-bo's love for Ti,with a delicacy shown by Po as they fall in love for each other,which turns to sorrow from a longing to see Ti again.

Done on the Shaw Brothers back-lot, (keep that budget down!)writer/ director Han Hsiang Li & cinematographer Tadashi Nishimoto soar with a vast vision that covers the film in shimmering primary colours that dazzle in the elegant Musical numbers. Displaying an impressive sensitivity towards the lesbian romance, Li uses graceful wide-shots to gaze at the blossoming romance. Adapting a well-known traditional story, the screenplay by Han Hsiang Li beautifully uses the operetta numbers to cast an epic operatic atmosphere over the tugged heartstrings. Dipping the tale into Melodrama, Li hits a poetic note with the thoughtful dialogue capturing bo's and Ti's eternal love turning them into beautiful butterflies.

The beautiful Betty Loh Ti (and also tragic. Like others who were in that era, she was a young suicide) plays Zhu Ying Tai, a 17 year old girl who longs to get an education. In order to do this, she has to disguise herself as a boy. This film is a musical, with her sweet voice singing the plot as it goes along. She meets Shan-Bo, who is a boy who, unbelievably to me, doesn't know she is female (that part of it is minimally disconcerting, at best). Based on a Chinese folk tale (which should give you a hint to what could be),this is an absorbing drama, with a lavish group of sets, as well as two very appealing leads. There are class differences in this film, with Ying Tai being rich, while Shan Bo isn't. There were a number of these adaptations of folk tales at the time (The Kingdom And The Beauty, starring the beautiful and also tragic Linda Lin Dai immediately springs to mind) and this one is very good. If you like musicals with pageantry, here it is. Watch it on a big screen television, its better. I watched it from a VCD and the beauty of the film still grabs you. Rest in peace, Betty Loh Ti.

Loved it for about the first 30 minutes. The naiveté, the unabashed fulsomeness. The twee scenery, the coy looks. Even the charmingly tinny-to western ears - voices. Wonderful. But after another 20 minutes the singing sounded like screeching, the characters woes became drag-some, the protracted, but uncomplicated plot developments unbearably tedious. And all this went on for two hours. Ang Lee must have been crying for his delayed after -film dinner. I know I was, as was my companion and,it seemed, most of the sparse audience at the Walter Reade. I'm being told this comment is too short for submission but I've said what I want to say.