Wow... Angela Yu Chien sure was a sweetie before her tenure as Shaw Brothers sexpot.
My first encounter with the sexy Angela was in her role as the nymphomaniac rich girl in the 1969 melodrama Torrent of Desire, a Hong Kong version of Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind. Boy, did she burn up the screen in that film! As Oldflames so nicely phrased it, Angela was part of Shaw Brothers' "Bombshell Trinity" (along with Fanny Fan and Tina Chin Fei) during the late sixties. Although she was often cast in small roles as the sexy other woman, Angela always made an impression much bigger than the screen time allotted to her.
It came as a slight surprise to me when I discovered the sweet, pre-sexy Angela. One of her very first supporting roles was Betty Loh Tih's soft-spoken secretary in The Dancing Millionairess (1964). Angela was as sweet and gentle as the pastel yellow cardigan she wears in the film. Her next major role was backing up Lin Dai in The Blue and the Black. The film was scheduled for a 1964 release but was left unfinished by Lin Dai's death that July. It was finally completed and released in 1966, and the following year Angela received a much belated Best Supporting Actress award at Taiwan's 5th Golden Horse Awards. That should have propelled her into the top tier of Shaw actresses. But it was too late: by then Angela was already playing a sexy, man-eating spider demon in Cave of the Silken Web (1967) and dancing wildly, dressed in a fishnet bodystocking, in King Drummer (1967).
Somehow, Angela had been fast-tracked into becoming one of Shaw's resident sex bombs. She was clearly capable of other roles, but let's be honest — not every actress can play the bad girl. Angela was simply the best qualified candidate for the position. Can you imagine any of Shaw's other stars performing this role? Li Ching... too cute. Cheng Pei-pei... too wholesome, when she isn't scowling. Chin Ping... come on, the girl can't even crack a smile. Ivy Ling Po... don't make me laugh!
While I'm sure that being typecast is disappointing to an actor, perhaps Angela relished the uninhibited expressiveness afforded by her sexy roles. If the characterization of her as a naughty tomboy from the following interview in Southern Screen No. 78 (August, 1964) is true, then she probably would have felt constricted by the burden of being a jade girl. (The recent tribulation of Gillian Chung is proof that playing the jade girl is not without its pitfalls, even in the 21st century.)
"Cover Girl" Angela Makes Good
Few people know that before she joined Shaw Studio two years ago, Angela Yu Chien was a "cover girl". Her sweet, dimpled face adorned the cover of a popular women's magazine in Hong Kong.
A native of Tientsin, Angela was born to a large family. Though she has grown up into an enchanting young lady, she was considered by her mother a tomboy and one of the naughtiest of her children.
While studying in Taiwan, she decided to make acting her career and enrolled in the Shaw-operated Southern Drama Group in Hong Kong, from which she graduated with flying colours.
Since then, she has appeared in a number of Shaw productions, including "The Dancing Millionairess" and "The Story of Sue San".
Recently she guest-starred in a German-Swiss film called "A Melody of Hong Kong", playing an enchanting Oriental girl.
You can download a PDF (604 KB) of the original article here. As you can see from the photos, Angela is no less sexy for being sweet.
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13 comments:
I *think* I remember her part from King Drummer. I feel like I should go back and re-watch Dancing Millionairess and Cave of the Silken Web now.
I think I could envision Li Ching being sexy or the bad girl, even though she was the "Baby Queen" of the Shaw studios; but you're right about the other actresses you listed.
Well, Li Ching did star in some of Shaw's 70s sex films -- Sexy Playgirls, Sexy Girls Of Denmark, That's Adultery! I haven't seen any of those. Have you?
I forgot to mention Lily Ho, who was definitely capable of playing the vamp. And in fact, she was on that track early in her career. She played the other woman (in these cases, spoiled rich girls) opposite leading ladies Cheng Pei-pei and Jenny Hu in Song of Orchid Island and Till the End of Time, respectively. She had suggestive scenes in Knight of Knights and Hong Kong Nocturne.
Lily was something of a sex kitten. According to an essay about her in The Shaw Screen: A Preliminary Study, it was her mother who engineered Lily's move from these kind of second tier roles into leading lady billing.
Margaret Tu was also another notable bag girl amongst the Shaw stars.No one could ever forget her heavily kolhed eye lids and her "pagoda" hairstyle that was "high and mighty".Although she was groomed to be a star in the early 60s, when she returned to Shaw after her her marriage, in the mid 60s, she was then often cast in B grade production, sometimes playing the lead role but always bad and vampy.
ooops, should be BAD instead of Bag.My favourite is Black Falcon, besides Margaret, the movie also features Jenny Hu and Paul Chang.Of course, the centre of attention,for me, is none other than Margaret Tu...especially her sky high pagoda hairstyle and Cleopatra-ish makeup.
I always got the feeling that Margaret had a hard time dealing with her fall from A-list wild child to B-list bad girl.
Margaret's last appearance in Diary of a Lady-Killer (1969) seemed especially humiliating, whereas Fanny's daring shower scene in that film comes off as a kind of swan song for her decade-long reign as HK cinema's preeminent sex bomb. (I always wondered what Ling Po felt about her husband Chin Han doing that scene!)
Tu Chuan did make a good spy film villainess. Thanks for sharing that tidbit about her "high and mighty" pagoda hair style. I love that kind of information! Speaking of "high and mighty", I recently read on the Golden Horse Awards website that Margaret declined a Best Supporting Actress award in 1963 because she thought she should have gotten Best Actress instead. Do you know what film it was for? That must have been a little scandalous.
Finally, here's my favorite look of Margaret: long hair, thick eyebrow shadow, and hoop earrings!
Yes, her look circa 1962-63 was the most spectacular one.Margaret Tu was very much BB of the East, a deserving title for her.
It was her role in The Second Spring (1963)that had won her the Golden Horse award.
I am puzzled by her remarks because Li Li Hua was undoubtedly the leading lady of the movie.
Some have commented that The Second Spring has a storyline that is rather similar to Lana Turner's Imitation of Life, in which Margaret Tu's part also bore some resemblance to the one that was played by Sandra Dee.
Actually, i am more interested watching her Stepmother (also 1963),which definitely was her splendid star vehicle.From the relevant movie reviews that i have read, her performace was highly touted by all. Diana Chang was very good in it but Margaret stole the show.Some even said Stepmother was her best movie.
Yes, I've seen That's Adultery! But I think I'm confusing it with one of those other Shaw erotic films from that era -- which one had Yueh Hua in a pretty revealing sex scene with Shirley Yu? I was on a serious Shirley Yu kick a few years ago.
I looked up Angela Yu from King Drummer -- she was the spoiled, bratty girl that I was thinking of.
-- Oldflames, I would love to see both The Second Spring and Stepmother. I'd much rather have seen these released on DVD than Love Parade. I can't help feeling that some of the best Shaw Brother films are still waiting to be seen.
-- Glenn, I haven't seen any of Shirley Yu's films. I've generally avoided Shaw's 70s output but recently have sampled some of their exploitation fare, like The Sexy Killer with Chen Ping.
Hi Glenn, it is Love Swindlers, I was wowed too after watching that 10min long sex sene. It was incredibly HOT!
Dave, as what you have posted, in their early years, Shaw Brothers did produce a lot of light-hearted comedies,melodramas and noir films ,nearly all of them were shot in black and while.Many movie critics commented that Shaw Brothers films are less "modern and cosmopitan" compared to MP & GI, in my opinion, those remarks are biased (i believe many of the movie reviewers have not seen the b/w white films of Shaw Bothers) because if they are able to watch those early works, their perception will be different
Yeah, my memory is shot; I surveyed my Shaw shelf and realized I have not seen That's Adultery after all -- was confusing it with Crazy Sex or something.
And, I was confusing Angela Yu with Essie Lin from Tropicana Interlude!
See, this is what happens when I have these Shaw marathons and watch too many at once!
Big Bad Sis with Chen Ping is pretty damn good, speaking of her.
"Written On The Wind" is one of my absolute favourite films, so the idea of a HK remake of it is almost too exciting to bear! Must see!
-- Oldflames, I love the cosmopolitan comedies and family melodramas of MP&GI, so I'm sure I'd love those similar films made by Shaw Brothers in the late 50s and early 60s. The Second Spring, which you mentioned, was originally announced in the Celestial Pictures DVD release list, and so was Tao Qin's All the Best (starring Chen Ho, Ting Ning, Ting Hung, Fanny Fan, and Tu Chuan). But neither were released. I wonder what happened? :(
-- Glenn, I have the same problem with the Shaw wuxia movies. I devour them like junk food and it's hard for me to differentiate the individual films afterwards.
--Christoper, thanks for dropping by! Torrent of Desire is not the masterpiece that Written on the Wind is, but you definitely won't be disappointed.
After discussing much about Margaret Tu, I can't help thinking of Angela Yu.
Angela and Margaret were very much alike in the sense that both were never the top A listers, great fame has eluded them, BUT they possessed a kind of sleek 60s MOD looks that were so distingushable,so Hong Kong cinema's golden-age starlets
Both were sweet and girl-next-door type in the beginning. They have the same type of Phoenix eyes, when they started drawing their eyelines darker and thicker ala Queen of the Nile, they immediately transformed themselves to the status of VAMP queens......call it presence, or star quality, or whatever, but it is THERE.
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