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Movie-Fan Princess
(1966)
Director: Wong Yiu
Cast: Connie Chan, Lui Kei, Lydia
Shum, Helena Law
Publisher: Pearl City; Format:
VCD, DVD (Region 0, PAL)
English subtitles: No
Full credits and synopsis from the HKFA online catalog
During the late 60s Connie Chan was
the idol of Hong Kong’s “factory girls,” the young women
who worked in the colony’s booming manufacturing industries.
These women readily identified with Connie’s down-to-earth nature
and can-do attitude. In Movie-Fan Princess she herself plays
a factory girl who ends up becoming a movie star and being romanced
by her screen idol played by Lui Kei.
Movie-Fan Princess was
the first time that Connie was paired with Lui Kei, who
would star as her leading man in 25 films over the next four years.
Contemporary audiences are probably more familiar with the
lampoons of Lui Kei (by Tony Leung Kar Fei in ‘92 Legendary
La Rose Noir and by Gallen Lo in Those
Were the Days) than they are with the man himself. In this film,
he plays a popular actor adored by Connie and all the other girls
at the factory. Connie quickly loses her crush, however, when she
finally sees him in person on the set of one of his films. He turns
out to be quite the diva, demanding a break between each take to be
pampered by three female attendants (one of them in a nurse’s outfit!).
Her fantasy deflated, Connie tears up all of his pictures hanging
on her bedroom wall. But when Connie later sees him at a hotel restaurant
with one of his groupies and flings a spoonful of ice cream sundae
in his face, Lui Kei is hopelessly smitten.
Their budding romance, however, is challenged
by a jealous co-worker who schemes to break them up and
by the evil factory owner who wants to turn Connie into his
personal concubine. Deviousnous and misunderstanding ensue,
but by the end of the film Connie saves the day in true heroic
fashion and then rushes off—just in the nick of time—to make her eagerly awaited arrival
at a special musical performance. The final scene in a hall
packed with her young fans is a documentary tribute to the huge
popularity of Connie Chan, the Movie-Fan Princess.
Reviewed by Dave Wells |
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Connie and her idol Lui Kei.
No kisses yet, Romeo!
Lui Kei escorts Connie through
a mob of her adoring fans.
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