Evergreen Motion Picture Company

The sophistication of 1950s Hong Kong cinema is vividly illustrated in this film of limited budget and resources. Cantonese opera star Sun Ma Si-tsang plays a country boy who looks exactly like Sun Ma and is asked by a rich girl to impersonate the star, to help her stage an opera. The self-reflexive humour generated by the absurd situation not only provides delicious parody of celebrity culture but also comments subtly on class inequality and the perils of urbanisation. Sun Ma, who also appears as himself in a stage performance, is complemented beautifully by the brilliant comedian Yee Chau-shui as his sidekick and Hung Sin Nui, another opera superstar, as the spoiled and precocious rich girl.

Rejected by Law (Sheung-kwun Kwan-wai), ruffian Koo (Wong Yee) exacts his vengeance by making Law lose her job. When her father is injured at work, her brother Fai and boyfriend Tse resort to obtaining a loan. Koo even kills their creditor and frames the murder on Tse. Law and her brother sow discord between Koo and his mistress, eventually exposing their crime and leading to Tse's acquittal. While retaining her feminie elegance and charm in subtle details, Law resourcefully eliminates all the threats and dangers. Unlike other conventional detective dramas of Cantonese films, this film is filled with a sense of community and grassroot sensibility. Sheung-kwun Kwan-wai impressively demonstrates a great flexibility and versatility in her characterisation and performance of this female detective role.