BrianDanaCamp

The great Japanese film actor Toshiro Mifune made his first foray into TV acting in this 1968 black-and-white miniseries, co-produced by Toho Pictures, but he would move to TV in a big way in the 1970s. Here he plays Jiro Funayama, a swordsman during the Warring States period of 1560, whose family was killed by a corrupt warlord and he seeks revenge, picking up random unemployed swordsmen, and one ninja, along the way. There's a lot of location photography and a steady pace of swordfighting action against some formidable opponents in the two 48-minute episodes I've seen, in both of which Mifune has to also rescue a damsel-in-distress. The actor is his usual staunch, grim self, beautifully played as always, complemented by comic relief provided by some of the other characters. There's not much info about this series in English on the web nor is there an entry for it under its Japanese or English titles in "The Dorama Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese TV Drama Since 1953," the only reference book I've seen in English covering Japanese TV shows. Toho star Akira Takarada (GOJIRA) leads the guest cast in the second episode but I don't know if he appears in any later segments.

TOO LATE FOR LOVE (1967) is a romantic melodrama with tragic elements from Hong Kong's Shaw Bros. Studio. Like the previous year's THE BLUE AND THE BLACK (also reviewed here by me), this one is set during China's war with Japan during World War II. The director, Lo Chen, is aiming for a tearjerker on the same scale, but it's told way too simplistically and merely checks off the boxes needed for the formula without giving the audience any reason to engage emotionally with the story. When Sufen, played by Ivy Ling Po, begins coughing early in the film, we immediately get a good idea of this movie's direction--and it never veers from it. While her husband (Kwan Shan) goes off to war, Sufen is left in his mother's house and bends over backwards to try to appease the overbearing woman who shows her displeasure with Sufen at any opportunity, going so far as to turn away a doctor who has been called to treat Sufen's condition. "It's just a cold," the mother insists. Eventually, the mother, played by Ouyang Shafei, sends Sufen back to her father, who gruffly rebuffs the husband when he comes to get his wife back. The mother's behavior is so unreasonable with no discernible motive other than to pump up the melodrama that we are unable to suspend disbelief as the story progresses.

The battle scenes between the Chinese army and Japanese soldiers are pretty extensive and involve dozens of extras and lots of weaponry, ammunition and explosions. Sufen's husband, Guoliang Li, a Lieutenant, is much more courageous in battle than he is at home with his controlling mother and acquits himself heroically in the course of the action. Curiously, word of his exploits never reach his mother, his wife or his father-in-law. He would have been hailed as a brave patriot and heroic defender of his country, yet no one acknowledges this. Sufen's father, played by Ching Miao, is a high-ranking military officer, frequently seen in uniform and accompanied by an aide-de-camp, yet he's always home and never leaves for the front. Nor does he ever discuss the war with Guoliang. This struck me as very odd and I could never take the film seriously as a result.

There are five songs in the film. Ivy sings three of them, two being heard on the soundtrack and one sung on-camera to her husband during an idyllic nature walk. The soldiers sing a marching song on their way to battle and a group of schoolgirls sing a choral song as Guoliang passes them on his long way home with crutches after a crippling injury from his war service. (You'd think a grateful Chinese military would have at least driven him home with an official escort.)

TILL THE END OF TIME (1966) is a production of Hong Kong's Shaw Bros. Studio and may be the best of the contemporary musicals and romantic dramas I've seen from its era. (I've reviewed quite a number of them for IMDB.) It tells the story of a composer (Peter Chen Ho) who woos a singer (Jenny Hu), culminating in marriage, a baby, a debilitating illness, separation and reunion.

Unlike so many of the Shaw films in these genres, there are no major contrivances, no eye-rolling plot holes, and no forced comic relief. Even Li Kwan, usually a buffoon in these films, plays a straightforward role as the hero's sensible reporter buddy. Peter Chen Ho never does anything stupid or annoying, as was his wont in Shaw's romantic comedies, but aims in a straight line to pursue sincere and committed romantic fulfillment with Jenny Hu. He even dumps his bored socialite fiancée (Lily Ho) for her and is disowned by his wealthy family for marrying "a common singer." The ailment he suffers, however, brings out his stubbornness and pride and causes him to do something unwise, but understandable, creating quite an obstacle for the otherwise happy couple in the second half of the film.

The proceedings are staged by director-writer Chin Chien in a most tasteful and sensitive manner and directed at a no-nonsense pace that takes us through the course of about two full years in the couple's life, without a frame of waste. This was Jenny Hu's first film in a 46-film career as an actress and singer that spanned 18 years (1966-1984). She's remarkably good at meeting the considerable dramatic demands of her role, but the real revelation is her beautiful voice, which sounds like she was classically trained. (Her father was Chinese and her mother German. Miss Hu spent part of her youth in Germany.) She sings some amusingly jaunty pop songs, e.g. "Let's Not Twist Again," but she really shines in the love songs she does at a nightclub in the film, including a Mandarin version of the title song, which was originally a hit for Perry Como back in 1945. As her character's career flourishes, she appears in films and on television and eventually sings a tearjerking song her husband wrote live on the radio. A sublime moment.

Special note should be made of actress Ouyang Shafei, who was only 42 when she made this but very convincingly plays Jenny's aged grandmother who initially spurns Peter's marriage offer because of the class differences between the two, but embraces him warmly when he walks out on his family for Jenny.