Queen of Underworld
If you thought Sandra Ng’s turn as a career prostitute
in “Golden Chicken” was unique, think again. Back in 1991 there was a film
that also followed the life of a woman from being a young girl first getting
into the hooking business through her middle aged years as a Mamasan. After
watching this film I can’t believe Amy Yip didn’t receive the Best Actress
Award for 1991 – instead they gave it to another Yip, Cecilia, who won
it for the film “A Thing Called Love”. I’ve never seen “A Thing Called
Love” (has anyone?) and I am sure Cecilia was fine but did she have to
portray a woman going through tough times and still surviving over a twenty
year period? Amy digs so deeply into this role that at one point she actually
puts on glasses to make herself look older. Now that is dedication to the
craft that should have been recognized.
Admittedly, she never really looks a day older
during the film, a wrinkle never adorns her pooky face, a gray hair never
takes nest and her legendary chest never seems to meet up with gravity,
but she wears those glasses with a spunky gleam in her eyes that shouts
out – by God this will show them that I am an actress. Not only does she
begin wearing glasses as she gets older – worse – she sleeps with Shing
Fui-on because he seemingly is the only man who wants her. Again this kind
of dedication should be recognized. Of course, in the same year, she was
to have a truly classic scene with Shing in “Blue Jean Monster”. In fact
1991 must have been an exhausting and bruising year for the Yipster as
she also appeared in “Sex and Zen”, “Robotrix” and “The Great Pretenders”
among a number of other films. This was the apex of her career as her films
from 1992 to her retirement in 1994 were an undistinguished lot. In “Queen
of Underworld” we get nearly 100% Amy as opposed to her often fleeting
but memorable cameos in so many of her films. In all semi-seriousness she
is actually fairly decent here and eminently watchable.
As a young woman with pigtails, Amy sells chicken
buns to customers in a restaurant, but they have a preference for her bigger
buns that she is not yet willing to sell. She calls these lascivious men
“creepers” while they tag her with the not very clever but rather accurate
nickname, “Big Tits”. One day she meets up with a small time pimp who promises
to take her away from this chicken bun life style and soon she is happily
making use of her sizable assets and meeting many fine men for short periods
of time. Life is a bit squalid as she has to share her pimp’s room with
him and his assorted followers, but when you are in love what’s the matter
with a small crowd of onlookers. When she gets a little bun in her oven
though, her pimp lover sees his future return on asset ratio diminishing
and decides that a punch in her stomach will take care of that financial
problem. Instead though Amy turns to a corrupt cop, Blackie Ko, who after
making sure that she measures up beats up the pimp and takes her and soon
her little girl in. This is just the first step though as she slowly becomes
. . . the Queen of the Underworld!
Soon she is managing a number of girls at a hostess
bar and imparting her wisdom to them. She takes a rookie under her wing
and after a little training from the Yipster, Pauline Chan is ready to
go out on her own into the scary world of Cat. III films and is soon a
star. Nothing goes easy though as Blackie still has a need to fool around
and on one occasion when Amy’s little girl interrupts his randy activities
he punts her for a field goal and though the only damage that is apparent
is that when she grows up to be Gigi Lai she has an inflated lower lip
that you could use as a life preserver, the Yipster doesn’t take kindly
to having her daughter treated as a football and takes a souvenir from
Blackie that he dearly misses.
No problem for Amy though - she just finds
another protector in Paul Chun Pui and soon develops a network of men from
a gweilo policeman to the big boss (with a cameo from Ray Lui) who keep
her safe. As the years roll by though Gigi grows up to resent her mom and
her protectors grow old and powerless and soon she is in trouble with nowhere
to turn to except a couple old friends that she taught the tricks of the
trade to years before. The film is mildly trashy as you might expect, but
goes as much for the melodrama as it does for any exploitation – which
comes primarily in the form of Pauline Chan. Even Amy keeps her cleavage
displays to a disappointing minimum here as if she is in fear of catching
a chest cold – still this is one of Amy Yip’s few films that used her generally
in a non-exploitive manner – whether that’s a good or bad thing I won’t
judge – but I enjoyed watching her stretch her thespian talents for a change.
My rating for this film: 6.0