Movies: Ma Hsiao-Nung

THE MONKEY GOES WEST is the first entry in the studio’s epic, four-part screen adaptation of “Journey to the West,” a 16th-century novel recounting the efforts of a Buddhist monk and his magical companions to travel to India and bring back Buddhist s...

Nineteen-year old Li Ching scored a major success playing the title character, Susanna. Li's youthful exuberance is given free rein in a role that embraces rebellion, love, betrayal, tragedy, and ultimately, redemption....

.A young middle-class upstart Lin Ching Yi reluctantly takes on the task as understudy for her sick father who's a dedicated teacher to a band of mischievous working-class 3rd graders that initially proved to be much more than she can handle. Yet it ...

The noted actress Li Li-hua, star of more than sixty films since 1947, beautifully portrays the drugged, then disgraced wife of a peddler in the waning days of the Ching Dynasty. To make matters worse, she’s soon framed for her husband’s murder by he...

Helen Li Mei plays the role of an alcoholic who, in a state of drunkenness, mistakenly hires a mafia boss to kill herself....

Comedy of Mismatches begins with widow Sun who single-handedly raises her son Yu Lang (Chin Feng) and daughter Zhu Yi (Li Hsiang Chun). One day, Mother Sun sends her children to the temple, where Yu Lang encounters Hui Niang (Pat Ting). Artist Xu Ya ...

Grace Chang delivers an eye-opening performance as a lusty nightclub singer climbing the social ladder in seedy Wanchai. Borrowing story and song elements from Georges Bizet’s CARMEN, this Wong Tin-Lam directed musical has flair and polish to rival H...

Huangmei Opera movies like The Pearl Phoenix are unique to 1960's Hong Kong culture, a product of the Swinging Sixties but considerably more in touch with their Chinese roots. This one is complete with a gender-bending tale where the male lead is pla...

The romance of a squire's daughter and a poor but refined scholar is thwarted when a loutish bandit is mistaken for the scholar by a confused servant and is given the idea that the daughter's hand in marriage is his for the asking. Rich in cross-dres...

Shaw Brothers drama....

The tragic love triangle of early 20th century Peking Opera star Chiu Hai-tang, his beautiful stage partner, and the warlord who forces himself between them, has been a favorite with Chinese audiences for decades....

The film tells the story of Xing Yonghui, a rich girl who has fun with her painter boyfriend Du Shaohua and her classmates. Chen Xiaoping and Guo Dawei fall in love and want to elope, but they are prevented from doing so; Du Shaohua and Li Zhongting ...

Love knows no limits in the grand period romance, Lady Jade Locket. A young fighter inadvertently falls for the spirit of a beautiful woman, who died years earlier avenging her own father's murder. The beautiful ghost is in fact the sister of his fia...

The adventures of a young married swordfighting couple, Lianzhu and Gui Wu, and the swordfighting members of their different clans....

Tao Zutai, a bank employee, has five children. Tao's wife is addicted to gambling and spends too much and the eldest daughter Guiru is greedy for vanity. Tao is overjoyed when he is notified that he will be promoted to deputy manager....

Su Fen, a young and frail girl, looked forward to her wedding with her fiancé, Li Kuo-liang. The happy couple's bliss was cut short when war broke out. Kuo-liang was summoned to fight at the front lines. In his absence, Su Fen discovered she had tube...

FAIRY, GHOST, VIXEN (1965) consists of three fanciful tales that may be loosely classified as ghost stories, but they're presented and designed more along the lines of traditional fairy tales. They're beautifully staged and photographed and have a ti...

Young love and its comedy of errors. Hsiao Fang, played by Li Ching, is a spunky young girl not afraid to fight back against hooligans. Unfortunately, she mistakes the handsome Ma Ta-hai, for one such hoodlum. The two are immediately attracted but re...

The film traces the relationships that develop between the protagonist Xu and the three women he meets, set against the backdrop of the Second World War....

Chen Hou is a chauffeur who gets caught in a mistaken identity scandal linking him to businesswoman Lok Dai. Chen was supposed to audition for a job as her chauffeur, but a proposed musical show is far more attractive to the aspiring dancer. When a r...