The House of the 72 Tenants
Reviewed by YTSL
I’m not sure about other people but this Hong
Kong film fan had been feeling some trepidation as well as excitement with
regards to the Shaw Brothers movies that Celestial Pictures has been and
will be re-releasing. Apart from techie type concerns and those that
stem from the sheer size of the collection whose contents many folks will
be seeing for the first time in decades, if not ever, I also found myself
wondering whether these near mythical offerings that have finally been
freed from their place in the Shaw Brothers vault would seem too dated.
Furthermore, I have worried re whether they would appear overly foreign,
even for someone who now feels comfortably familiar with the output of
the more recent decades of Hong Kong cinema.
In bidding to minimize this possibility, I made
sure that my first two introductory Celestial Pictures releases starred
Cheng Pei Pei -- a former dancer turned actress who may have started her
career as a Shaw Brothers contract worker but has continued to ply her
trade up until the present day. Emboldened by how much enjoyment
I got out of viewing a 1960s musical (in “Hong Kong Nocturne”) as well
as a classic wuxia work that I had previously only managed to see in faded,
“pan and scan” form (i.e., “Come Drink with Me”), I next elected to check
out a legendary comedy that: has been majorly credited with helping to
revive Cantonese-dialect/language cinema (The mind almost boggles upon
learning via David Bordwell’s “Planet Hong Kong” that, in 1972, the year
before THE HOUSE OF 72 TENANTS’s initial theatrical release, “no Cantonese
films were made” (See 2000:66)); plus looked to have been warmly referenced
two decades later in “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Father” (a nostalgia drenched
U.F.O. work that featured an appearance by this box office champ’s director-scriptwriter,
Chor Yuen, as well as a main character -- played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai
-- who was named after him).
THE HOUSE OF 72 TENANTS is a generally affectionate
as well as often comic portrait of Hong Kong at the peak of an economic
depression, and during a time of high inflation -- when a bar of soap or
sack of flour could just one day later cost as much as two of the exact
same stock did the day before. Although its context plus subject
matter -- which, broadly speaking, include human nature, social problems
and communal goings on -- are not innately humorous ones, the movie apparently
succeeded in generating a bundle of laughs along with some fortunately
not long-lasting tears during its climb to the top of the 1973 box office
list. Re the matter of its out-grossing even the Bruce Lee starring
“Enter the Dragon”: This probably stemmed in large part from this collective
spirited product of what might have been labeled at the time as a “right
wing studio” turning out to be -- as Bey Logan opined in an interview that’s
part of the film’s DVD package -- a “celebration of the common man in Hong
Kong”. At the same time, the eventful offering undoubtedly appealed
as well to 1970s era “Fragrant Harbour” cinema-goers by way of possessing
a cast that has been described as “a virtual who’s who of the local entertainment
scene” (whose names -- and that of the characters they play -- actually
get flashed on the screen when they make their first appearance in the
film).
As might be gathered from its (English language)
title, THE HOUSE OF 72 TENANTS centers around certain colorful personalities
who live in the same large building -- that’s actually multiply divided
up into separate units -- and are liable to frequently cross swords as
well as paths with their fellow tenement residents. These include:
the good looking -- but frequently bad behaving -- landlady (Hu Chin plays
the woman identified as Pat Koo in the English subtitles); her arrogant
husband (Ah Bing is essayed by Tien Ching); her put upon adopted daughter
(Ah Heung is portrayed by Cheng Li); a honest and handsome cobbler (Fat
Choi comes in the form of Yueh Hua, one of whose earlier roles had been
that of the drunken hero of “Come Drink with Me”); an activist olive vendor
named Ah Fook (played by Hoh Sau San) together with his quieter wife (who
is essayed by Nam Hung, the real life wife of Chor Yuen); and a lively
laundress referred to as Shanghai Po (who Lydia Shum plays with quite a
bit of relish).
Among the supporting characters in THE HOUSE OF
72 TENANTS who, nonetheless, also manage to get embroiled in such as an
argument about water rights, disputes over a pair of burnt trousers or
a piece of stolen cloth, a bid to stop the planned eviction of a tenant
and the foiling of an attempt to marry off a nineteen year old female to
an old man who already had five concubines as well as a (senior) wife are:
an elderly tailor and his gentle wife (Uncle and Auntie Chan are respectively
portrayed by Wong Hon and Ouyang Shafei); a doctor who has just migrated
to Hong Kong from Shantung (played by Cheng Miao - real life father of
Cheng Li); plus a seemingly particularly impoverished cigarette vendor
(Wong Ching Ho’s character still gets respectfully addressed as Uncle Yeung
though by most of the other tenants). A few others whose presence
adds flavor plus socio-cultural variety to this packed effort are: Shanghai
Man (Cheng Hong Yip character is the husband of Shanghai Po); a crooked
cop (Police Constable 369 is played by Liu I-Fan); a consumptive as well
as jobless university graduate (Han Yi Shi is essayed by Leung Tin) and
his double job holding -- to compensate for her spouse’s unemployed plus
sickly state -- wife (The elegant but understandably often tired looking
Mrs. Han is portrayed by Karen Yip Leng Chi).
Despite the still entertaining after all these
years -- without being “side-splitting laughter” inducing, like had been
promised in its original trailer -- offering having the title it does,
not all of the 72 stars (or characters) who populate THE HOUSE OF 72 TENANTS
are residents of the crowded living quarters whose address gets given as
No. 96 Chan Yuen. Additionally, even while this surprisingly unclaustrophic
feeling work looks to have been entirely shot inside the Shaw Brothers
Studio, other settings inside of which events occur include a market, an
underground casino, a brothel and assorted streets and alleyways.
For the most part, it is these supplemental locations where Hong Kong filmophiles
can get further amusement by way of spotting certain individuals who only
have minor roles in this effort but would achieve greater prominence in
years and decades to come (like Helena Law Lan and Danny Lee; though Adam
Cheng and Ricky Hui did end up at the movie’s main locale as members of
a crew of firefighters who went there in response to what turned out to
be a false fire alarm).
My rating for the film: 7.5
For another review of The House
of 72 Tenants plus a Gallery of the Actors/Charcters, click here.
