Love would be worth a look if only for a subversive feminism that predated the US women’s movement by nearly a decade. More compelling, though, are Li’s subtly beautiful set designs and his seductive orchestration of atmosphere and mood. In one key sequence, Shan Bo accompanies Ying Tai back home through the lilacs and bubbling brooks of a gorgeous spring, bewildered by the broad hints Ying Tai has dropped in song about her identity and her desire. Later he learns the truth and makes the journey again, recalling each clue along the way, his jubilant song countered by the now ominous late-fall landscape.
An auteur in his own right, Li is also represented in this series by the supernatural melodrama THE ENCHANTING SHADOW (1960; June 1 at 9:30 pm), in which his evocative mise-en-scène combines with a Roger Corman–like luridness. As in Love, women take the leading roles, though less heroically. A naive young man finds lodgings in a haunted temple. Visited by a beautiful specter, he chastely declines her advances, infuriating the vampiric harridan who controls her. A crusty swordsman helps out, but he seems an afterthought; Li seems to have more sympathy with his empowered if wicked women than with his male protagonists.
Likewise Chu Yuan in INTIMATE CONFESSIONS OF A CHINESE COURTESAN (1972; May 31 at 9:30 pm), a wild entertainment that combines The Story of O with Sudden Impact. Kidnapped, raped, and forced into prostitution, feisty Ai Nu (Lili He) realizes that she can’t succeed by open rebellion, so she plays along with her captors in order to ingratiate herself with them. Making her job easier is brothel madam Chun (Lili Yue Hua), a stunning lesbian and martial-arts expert who enjoys driving her fingertips into a male victim’s chest and licking the blood off.
Chun has taken a shine to Ai Nu, and when Ai Nu reciprocates, Chun vows eternal love and, more important, teaches Ai Nu the secrets of kung fu. Having achieved her goal through love and deceit rather than hate and resistance, Ai Nu can take revenge with impunity on all who have crossed her, notwithstanding the best efforts (and the infatuation) of the local police investigator, or the increasing jealousy of Chun’s haplessly besotted business partner and former mentor.
Despite, or because of, their moral dubiousness, it’s hard not to root for Ai Nu and even the wicked but lovesick Chun. And the delicate filigreeing of sado-masochism with romance and of gauzy pastel costumes and sets with blood-spewing carnage makes for a heady and depraved delight. But such niceties as independent female characters and moral ambiguity became rarities after the worldwide success of Chung Chang-wa’s KING BOXER (1972; May 30 at 9 pm), which was released in the United States as Five Fingers of Death, the film that marked the start of the internationally popular martial-arts genre as we now know it.
