I'll Get You One Day
(Picture from "Silver Light" by Paul Fonoroff)
Films shouldn’t be this much fun. Even without
subs this is an enormously enjoyable and entertaining film as it switches
back and forth between frothy go-go pop songs and frantic kung fu female
fighting. If this is a sample of the 1960’s Cantonese action film scene
I am in trouble because this stuff could become addictive. So far very
little of this market has been aimed at a Western audience in the same
way that the Shaw films have been recently and there has unfortunately
been minimum attempt to restore the aging prints. So the viewer has to
put up with more scratches than an alley cat and a general blanding of
the color palate, but at least for this film it is well worth putting up
with these minor distractions. This film was made in 1970 just as the Cantonese
film industry was hitting rock bottom with only 35 releases that year and
1 the next until it began to rebound a few years later with the success
of the Hui Brothers.
When it did though few of the stars of the earlier
Cantonese film industry came back with it unless it was more in supporting
roles such as Woo Fung and Kenneth Tsang or as a lead role in the occasional
off-beat film like Josephine Siao. Others simply moved over to television
where they found success in a medium that was still Cantonese based and
some like Connie Chan Po-chu simply retired with over 200 films under her
belt at the age of 25. In fact, Connie was to make only a few more films
after this one – interestingly her final film was her first one for the
Shaw Brothers – “The Lizard” in 1972. One might surmise that she didn’t
appreciate the heavy-hand of the Shaw Brothers or its star system in which
she was no longer at the top. Having seen “The Lizard” I can only say that
it barely hints at the charisma and star appeal that Connie shows in some
of her Cantonese efforts – in “I’ll Get You One Day” she is a force of
nature constantly on the move – her eyes blazing – her legs kicking and
spinning – but there is one small moment near the end of the film when
the camera simply stares as it holds her face in near freeze frame as it
heartbreakingly registers what she has just witnessed – and at that moment
you realize why she was so beloved and such a star. Of course her funky
what the hell was that dance steps didn’t hurt!
The film opens with Connie giving a judo demonstration
to her class as she takes on one student after another and tosses them
around like paper dolls. Having this skill will come in very handy over
the next few days. She rooms with her sister played by the very bubbly
Nancy Sit and is being courted by Kenneth Tsang – a plain clothes policeman
and they like dressing the same way when they go out. When not flipping
people over her shoulder, she and Nancy are singers at a nightclub where
they pump out Technicolor tunes to the obvious glee of what seem to be
a bunch of horny old men who can barely stay seated. In fact, we get three
songs in a row – all filmed in that queasy 70’s soft-core soft focused
colored glow in which faces appear in hearts or in kaleidoscope images
or all of a sudden the girls are surrounded by fields of flowers. It’s
so wonderfully tacky that you have to gurgle in pleasure especially as
the camera for some bizarre reason flashes back and forth between ceramic
figures for some effect that must have been cool at the time but is totally
mystifying now.
Without the subtitles there are some things I
may have missed out on or misinterpreted, but this is my best guess. After
the lengthy musical interlude the movie kicks into gear. A gang of
five guys – headed by a young Stanley Fung pre-moustache and including
the bald-headed Fung King Man – hold up a jewelry store – a few of them
hidden behind stockings, the others could only afford sunglasses I guess
– and in their getaway one of them runs into Nancy and she gets a good
look at him. Along with Connie and Tsang she is taken to police headquarters
where Cheung Ching (who often starred in Cathay films as the woeful boyfriend
type) questions her. Back home they receive a phone call and are threatened
not to be witnesses, but instead Nancy draws a picture of the man she bumped
into. The next day while out in the street they see this man coming at
them – staggering – he has a knife in his back and dies at their feet but
not before a key comes slipping out of his mouth and he tells them this
will lead them to the stolen jewels. The gang is right behind him and Connie
gets into her first free for all she as takes them all on in a good old
fashioned punch em up.
The film turns into a running scenario of the
bad guys trying to track down the two sisters because they have this key
and Connie fighting them off – with only some minor help from Nancy who
apparently skipped her kung fu classes. Two scenes make this film a minor
classic. At one point Nancy is kidnapped by the gang and Connie attempts
to find her whereabouts. To do this she goes into male mode – something
she often did in her films apparently – as she slicks back her hair, puts
on jeans and sunglasses and has a cigarette dangling from her mouth
- maybe it’s just me but she never looked better and wouldn’t fool a blind
man at twenty paces. Her first stop of business is a seedy shady pool hall
where she takes a pool cue to some unruly heads to make a point. This is
witnessed by Fung who seemingly doesn’t recognize this “guy” and invites
“him” back to the gang’s hideout. If this was a Shaw film the hideout would
likely have been burrowed in a cliff with loads of fashion conscious attendants
running about – but the Cantonese films didn’t have that kind of budget
so their hideout has the look of a teenagers recroom with shag rugs and
a small phonograph to keep them entertained. They are having a party and
dancing something resembling the twist with a bevy of younger women and
Connie is playing it tough all the way as she takes a deep drag on her
cigarette like a dying man.
Stanley offers “her” one of these women to play
with but after giving them the up and down inspection she tells him they
are not her type – she wants something different to toy with. So they bring
out a tied up Nancy who after a few looks is able to penetrate the amazing
disguise of her sister and coos and happily sits on Connie’s lap and begins
to purr. At this point Stanley pulls out the little red pills and all his
helpers and helpees grab one and are soon in a near comatose state with
them all hiccupping and twitching – that is until he puts on a rock and
roll song and soon they are all dancing like Zombies from a “B” movie.
Then things really get odd when the two sisters give each other a knowing
look and break into a song and dance number – that should really throw
the bad guys off their trail – but its so wonderfully stupid that you can’t
help but love it and replay it multiple times.
Later after having escaped yet one more time,
the girls are once again being tracked down by the gang and the final 20-minutes
of the film turns into a terrific set piece as the girls are chased all
over and continuously fight them off. Finally they find themselves trapped
in a small neighborhood of half-demolished buildings that act as backstops
to all the action as the girls dodge into one after another – by this time
the original gang of five has grown into the gang of thirty and there is
a constant series of attacks - all syncopated to a great jazz score that
has infused the film from the beginning. The choreography is very solid
and Connie’s moves are very fluid and well timed as she dodges kicks, punches
and knife thrusts from a gaggle of bad guys. This is just one of those
films that you sit there and think - this is so cool. By the way
- I am just curious - the woman pictured below performs a song in the nightclub
and then disappears - does anyone know if she was a singer at the time?
Both Connie and Nancy were members of the “The
Seven Cantonese Princesses” in the 1960’s – a term for a group of very
popular young actresses in the Cantonese film industry. The two biggest
stars of them were Connie and Josephine Siao with the others often in co-starring
roles. Other than Nancy, the others were child star Bo Bo Fung, Wong Oi-ming,
Fung So-so (Bo Bo’s sister) and Sum Chi-wah. These were the idols
of their time. Connie was born in 1947 and both her parents were well-known
Cantonese opera performers. As she grew up she studied opera as well as
certain styles of martial arts under her parents – but because of her deep
voice they thought she was suited to playing male roles. At the age of
ten she performed in her first opera and soon moved into film in 1959 at
the age of 12 making her debut in “The Scout Master”. Later she mentored
under the actress Yam Kim Fai and took easily to acrobatic roles.
As she grew older she seamlessly moved into wuxia
roles – often playing a male figure – and over her career she made more
than 90 wuxia films. She had her hand in every genre though – romances
in which she was paired with Lui Kei for over 20 films, action, drama and
musicals – basically she could do it all and she became enormously popular.
One of her first films to really put her on the map was the 1965 “Black
Rose” and in a short period of time she made an amazing amount of films
– often averaging around 20 a year. Basically the popularity of her and
Josephine kept Cantonese film alive till the end of the decade. She first
retired in 1970 and moved to Canada, but returned for “The Lizard” but
that was it. In 1999 she came back to perform on stage taking on the character
of her early teacher Yam Kim Fai.
My rating for the film: 7.5