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A Glamorous Christmas
Night (1967)
Director:
Chan Wan (aka Chun Man-to)
Cast: Connie Chan, Lui Kei,
Alan Tang
Publisher: Pearl City; Format:
VCD, DVD (Region 0, PAL)
English subtitles: No
Full credits and synposis from the HKFA online catalog
During a Christmas play at
the local church, Ah Lai (Connie Chan), a poor girl
living in a crowded public housing unit with her mother and
several little brothers and sisters, is noticed by a film producer
and offered a contract. Kong Ping (Lui Kei), Ah Lai’s neighbor
and best friend since childhood, also finds a job with the same company.
Ah Lai starts making movies and in less than a year becomes quite
famous. But when the director’s assistant approaches Kong Ping and
offers him money to convince Ah Lai to become intimate with the producer’s
son, Kong Ping leaves the job in a rage and makes Ah Lai promise
that she will be careful and avoid getting too close with those movie
people.
Unfortunately, Ah Lai’s mother,
a mahjong junkie always in need of cash, agrees to play
a vile trick on her daughter in exchange for some banknotes
and a couple of presents. During a Christmas party while the
guests are dancing and drinking downstairs, her mother feigns
sickness in order to lure her upstairs. When Ah Lai steps into
the bedroom to check on her, the mother steps out and locks her
inside—leaving her desperate and alone with the producer’s
son. At first he acts cool and offers her a drink spiked with
sleeping pills, but when she spits it out, he slaps her until she
faints and then excitedly violates her. To make everything more
tragic and complicated, that same evening Ah Lai is expected to show
up at the church’s annual Christmas play. Will Kong Ping excuse
her for being late? Will Ah Lai confess what made her late? Or
will someone else reveal what happened, dishonoring Ah Lai’s reputation
for the rest of her life?
Unbelievably bitter and without
hope, A Glamorous Christmas Night
still manages to provide some comedy. It happens at the very
beginning, when we see Connie Chan’s character playing a
rich girl who wants a pair of red shoes for Christmas. She asks
a demonic-looking Santa Claus (played by a leaping Lui Kei)
and then sings and dances with him in a glorious world of red and
white. Donning a long beard (and looking uncannily like Tony Leung
Kar-fai in Men Suddenly In Black!), Lui Kei also plays Connie’s
old father, who constantly scolds her and disapproves of her merry
friendship with a dashing dancer (played by Alan Tang, so young and tall!).
All of this appears extremely unbelievable—so overacted and excessively
colorful—until it is finally revealed as just a play.
Afterwards the colors are
still bright, the sets still look theatrical (like
the fascinating tenement balcony where Lui Kei and Connie Chan
share the only happy moments in the whole movie), but then
everything becomes more real, more down to earth—and most of
all, the comic mood completely disappears. In its place, an
accumulation of sordid details makes us keenly aware by the end of
the film that we have witnessed a very disturbing experience: the nasty
laugh of Connie’s mother (played by Ma Siu-ying); the despicable
look in the eyes of the producer’s son (Mak Gei, always his best
in villain roles) as he unbuttons his shirt before raping Connie;
and the unforgettable scenes in which Connie becomes possessed by
dementia and her mother responds by constantly beating her.
Lots of tears and songs provide the
framework for these tragic events, and Connie Chan, a pro when it comes
to crying and singing, consequently dominates the screen with her presence:
a very strong temper to match a very unfortunate girl who struggles from
the beginning to the end to survive in a world in which nothing seems to
work properly—not even her boyfriend Lui Kei who is so honest that he soon
becomes stiff and dumb. (What kind of man is it who runs away when his girlfriend
needs him the most because she’s in shock after being raped?! What
kind of man, after deciding to come back, tries to make his girlfriend
remember the past—not for her sake, but just in order to be
recognized as the sweet old boyfriend she once had?)
Director Chan Wan spent his
entire career trying to compete with Chor Yuen. He made
very theatrical and visionary movies with a keen sense of
color and contrast, but often with such a low budget and under
so many restrictions that the peculiar look recognizable in all
his movies (cardboard and recycled sets, feeble lighting, and
childish special effects) becomes a creative hallmark that makes
one appreciate his sense of fantasy and tendency to mix echoes of
western films with Chinese folklore and opera. A musical, comedy, theater
play, and dark drama all in one, A Glamorous Christmas
Night is a must see for all Connie Chan fans.
Reviewed by Valentina Verrocchio
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Best friends since childhood:
Lui Kei and Connie Chan.
A Tragic Christmas Night is a more
appropriate title for this unbelievably bitter and hopeless
film.
The glamorous dream that never comes
true.
Connie Chan and Lui Kei sharing a rare
happy moment.
Connie Chan dominates the screen with
her presence.
Lui Kei looking uncannily like Tony
Leung Kar-Fai
in Men Suddenly in Black
(2003).
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