I’m doing this separate from the Shaw Bros. thread because it’s about star Linda Lin Dai and not the movie. DIAU CHARN (1958) is in the latest batch of Shaw Bros. discs. I believe it’s Shaw’s first color film, a Huangmei opera that stars Lin Dai. I picked it up on VCD because I didn't see a DVD of it in the stores I was in.
Anyway, it was accompanied by a second disc which contains six chapters offering a short series of segments on Lin Dai. There are two old black-and-white Shaw-produced pieces from 1964, after Lin Dai’s suicide, that have English subs. The other pieces, newly-shot montages and interviews, are in Mandarin with NO English subs. I recognized Cheng Pei Pei from one interview but I didn’t recognize the other actress from that period who’s interviewed and she’s not i.d.’d in English. Frustrating. It’s probably someone I’ve seen in dozens of movies.
The final segment is a 19-minute b&w news film produced by Shaw and called, “A Tribute to Lin Dai,” which was most likely shown in theaters in late 1964. It has a female narrator and is mostly subtitled in English (the white titles-on-white backgrounds type), although there are several long stretches of narration without subs. It shows Lin Dai’s apartment after her death. It shows news clips of her 1961 wedding day and all the media fuss around it, but seems to curiously leave out exactly who she married. It shows a memorial exhibition devoted to Lin Dai mounted in Hong Kong’s City Hall and the star-studded crowd it drew, including a bunch of Shaw starlets, with Margaret Tu Chuan (who later killed herself as well) getting a lot of attention. The narrator informs us that the paparazzi are trying to get Margaret to "say 'cheese'" but to no avail. It's too sad an occasion to force a smile.
Later, we see the gala star-studded premiere of THE LAST WOMAN OF SHANG, which took place on August 26, 1964, a month after Lin Dai’s suicide. (It wasn’t Lin Dai’s final film; she still had about four others in the can when she died.) The premiere drew an all-star Shaw Bros. lineup including Ivy Ling Po, Peter Chen Ho, Tien Feng, Ching Miao, Ouyang Shafei and many other familiar names and faces. Run Run Shaw and his employee/future rival Raymond Chow are seen standing and waiting for the guest of honor, Hong Kong’s governor at the time, Sir David Trench, and greeting him and his wife and escorting them in. Big crowds of the hoi polloi are seen outside the theater clamoring for a view of the stars.
I got to thinking, when did any big star death in the U.S. attract this kind of commotion and attention? Especially one that was a suicide. Certainly Marilyn Monroe’s didn’t. But then, she didn't have any posthumous films either. Rudolph Valentino, maybe, but that was back in 1926 (ironically, the year Monroe was born). James Dean had two posthumous films, including the one that made him famous, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, but he was more famous after he died than before and the commotion took time to build as youthful audiences gradually got wind of the fact that this great new star who spoke to them like no other was already dead. You certainly wouldn't have had a star-studded premiere of REBEL with Warner Bros. stars on the red carpet on the order of Shaw's premiere of LAST WOMAN OF SHANG. Jack Warner, in fact, was reluctant to even release REBEL once Dean had died.
So back to Lin Dai...now, I’ve gotta watch DIAU CHARN.
And MADAM WHITE SNAKE. And BEYOND THE GREAT WALL. And LOVE WITHOUT END...etc.
Thanks for the heads-up. Didn't know this was out yet. (Is it just me, or has ADG not been rocking the new release lists like they used to?)
I think this is the oldest Shaw title that Celestial intends to release. Would love to know how the restoration turned out.
Hello,
Fandom alert. For those of you really intent on pursuing this Lin Dai mania to the fullest, here are some useful things to keep a look-out for:
The 2004 Shaw Bros. calendar was a special tribute to Lin Dai (lots of photos):
http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/code...pid-1003048791/The massive 516-page biographical compendium of Shaw starlets called _The Shaw Beauties_ put out by the Joint Publishing Co. (HK) in 2004:
http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/code...pid-1003849689/The 508-page handbook on the Shaws' leading men (_The Heroes_) printed in 2005:
http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/code...pid-1004074011/The 2004 book on Shaws' period films and Huangmei Opera adaptations:
http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/code...pid-1003850108/ The 2004 book on Shaws' musicals and melodrama:
http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/code...pid-1003962103/Bo Jiang's book of interviews with famous Shaw Bros. contract players including Lin Dai:
http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/code...pid-1003999532/The HK film archive's book on director Li Han-hsiang:
http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/CulturalService/...ublication.htmlSomething on ol' (100-years and counting) "Sixth Uncle" himself:
http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=20087898 A lot of these books are available for sale at the usual on-line bookstores (Eslite, HK Bookcity, Amazon China/Joyo, etc.) but I've linked to YesAsia product pages because they, unlike the others, have an English check-out screen. Mind you, the other places are about 50% cheaper but when you factor in overseas shipping rates and whatnot, it comes out to about the same.
Speaking from personal experience, I've ordered books from a bunch of sites including the likes of Amazon France and Japan and generally speaking, I've always found it easiest to work with a retailer located in the target country I'm sending goods to. Thus, if I get a French book and I'm going to be Paris, I do my order through Amazon FR. If I want a Japanese book but I'm going to be in Taipei for a few months, I use Eslite. I usually go with whatever outfit has the most inexpensive shipping and try to avoid purchases that pass through maritime customs if a local domestic option is available.