THE true-life story of painter Pan Yuliang (1899-1977) - from her youth in a Chinese brothel to her sunset years as an acclaimed artist in Paris - has the drama, romance, and sweep of history that is tailor-made for epic motion pictures. Hers was a fascinating life that deserves better than La Peintre, or at least the version being shown in Hong Kong. Some of the most impressive names in Chinese films are associated with La Peintre, including star Gong Li, director Huang Shuxin, Zhang Yimou (listed as ''planning director''), and co-scriptwriter Liu Heng (Story of Qiuju). But the film unfolding on Hong Kong screens is so disjointed that one can only assume that a good half-an-hour was sheared to make a longish picture more ''commercial'', i.e. to conform to the usual screening times. The results are likely to please neither mainstream movie fans nor art house patrons. Matters are not helped by a poor Cantonese dubbing job. There are three scenes that remain in the original sync-sound, where Going Li speaks in French. Regardless of the quality of the dialogue, the vocal nuances are much more appropriate in these undubbed moments. Even giving the film-makers so many benefits of the doubt, La Peintre has some obvious problems. Gong Li is fine in those scenes where she is 20 or 30 something. But as a 12-year-old girl? The opening takes place in 1911, with the wide-eyed and innocent Pan exposed to the harsh realities of a woman's fate in traditional Chinese society. Gong Li may be an excellent actress, but a young teenager she ain't. Similarly, in later scenes where she's an expatriate in Paris, she simply isn't convincing as a middle-aged and elderly woman. The bulk of the story concerns Pan's relationship with a young official (Derek Yee Tung-sing), a man who redeems her from the brothel and sets her up in Shanghai as his second wife. Enlightened for his era, he encourages Pan's pursuit of education and supports her seven-year stay in Paris, capped by her winning an international award. Pan returns to Nanjing Central University, where she is assigned a professorship in art. But semi-feudalistic China is still not ready for Western-style (i.e. nude) painting, nor liberated career women. So it's back to Paris, where she pursues her art inexile. Visually, the film is sumptuous. Dramatically, many fascinating episodes are touched upon, but they invariably come across as superficial. Again, this may have everything to do with the film editor's hacksaw. But in the end, La Peintre fails to communicate the passion, talent, ambition, and spirit that would propel an abandoned waif in Anhui Province to artistic fulfilment and fame in Paris. ANOTHER ''true life'' story is told in The Legend of Kung Fu Queen (aka Wing Chun), but in this case there is little attempt to shed light on the woman and her times. Yim Wing Chun was the founder of the ''Wing Chun'' school of martial arts some three centuries ago, but you'd never know it from this movie. Director Yuen Wo-ping has transformed this potentially exciting tale into just another historic martial arts comedy of the variety local audiences tired of months ago. Michelle Yeoh is the title character, a maiden whose kung fu skills are so superior to those of her male counterparts that she runs the risk of never finding a good husband. Her chances of marriage are not helped by Wing Chun's habit of dressing in male garb. The only villager eager to espouse the superwoman is a vain scholar (Waise Lee Chi-hung), who regards Wing Chun as a desirable wife-cum-bodyguard. Actually, Wing has a fiance in Leung Pok-to (Donnie Yan Chi-tan). But the couple haven't seen each other in 10 years, and when he returns to their village he mistakes Wing's assistant, the ultra feminine Charmy (Katharine Hung Yan), for his childhood sweetheart. And to give this well-worn plot an even more tired twist, Leung mistakes the masculine-attired Wing for his fiancee's lover. Granted, you don't go to a Yuen Wo-ping movie for plot subtleties. Yuen is an action director, and The Legend of Kung Fu Queen is packed with action, action, and more action - kung fu scenes barely distinguishable from those in the dozen or so films he'shelmed in recent years. It's fun to spot the shots where Michelle is being doubled, and there are plenty of them. At least it takes one's mind off the juvenile level of the humour, a good deal of which centres around the women's activities in the making and marketing of bean curd and the leering men who patronise their tofu shop. Kingdom Yuen King-tan, as Wing's aunt, reprises her usual love-hungry shrew role (which, by the way, she does quite well). At one point, she complains to her niece about declining tofu sales. ''But ours is of the best quality,'' Wing protests. To which the aunt replies, ''Nowadays, quality isn't enough. Packaging is important.'' The Legend of Kung Fu Queen falls flat on both counts.