FILM (1972)
The Warlord Michael Hui Koon-man, Tina Leung, Tsung Hua, Hu Chin, Lily Ho Li-li Director: Li Han-hsiang
It is rare for retired 'sex bombs' to make the front pages in Hong Kong, and even rarer for a nearly 30-year-old Hong Kong comedy to be cited in 2010 editorials. But then again, actress-turned-entrepreneur Tina Leung was no ordinary entertainment personality and her most famous film, The Warlord, was an extraordinary achievement.
The recent death of Leung, who acted under the name Tina Ti ('TNT' being an apt description of her impact), turned the spotlight on her most notorious role as the adulterous fourth wife of the movie's titular personage. Her nude romp with paramour Tsung Hua, tame by today's standards, was truly bold for its time.
Memorable as her performance may be, Leung's role is secondary in terms of the overall narrative. This seriocomic look at an early 20th-century despot provides Michael Hui Koon-man with such a brilliant showcase that even if Leung's footage had been left on the cutting room floor, The Warlord would still stand out as one of the most intricate farces in the history of Chinese-language cinema.
Hui (right, with Leung) was already well known to television audiences when he burst upon the big screen as Pang Ta Fu ('Big Tiger Pang'), a military man whose self-confidence and bravado propel him to a position as head honcho of Shandong province. The movie marked not only Hui's ascension to the upper ranks of stardom but the return to Shaw Brothers of director-writer Li Han-hsiang, who for the previous decade had been working for the studio's rivals. After making his name with operatic epics such as The Kingdom and the Beauty (1959) and bawdy burlesques like Legends of Cheating (1971), Li skilfully combined genres in The Warlord's ribald treatment of the late Qing and early Republican eras.
The opening is anything but dry, using animation to relate Pang's emergence during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5, fought largely on Chinese soil with the nascent warlord an emerging power broker. The director was well versed in Chinese history and made Pang an amalgam of more than a half-dozen of the period's potentates, taking from each such colourful fact-based incidents as the raiding of an imperial tomb, firing cannons at the heavens as a rain-making challenge to the gods, and adjudicating court cases in a uniquely idiosyncratic manner.