MIST OVER DREAM LAKE (1968) was based on a book by popular female Taiwanese romance novelist Chiung Yao. It's a grand melodrama about a summer in farm country spent by a pretty city girl whose parents are going through a divorce. It's got a top-notch cast of Shaw Bros. performers, a set of compelling romantic subplots, and gorgeous color cinematography capturing picturesque Taiwan locations and exquisitely designed studio sets at Shaw Bros.' Hong Kong studio.
The protagonist is Yung Wei (Fang Yin), a girl from Taipei who spends an eventful summer at the farming household of her uncle, aunt, two grown male cousins and a female teenage cousin. Also figuring in the mix are a temperamental artist and a wild mountain girl. As depicted in the film, first cousins are considered prime marriage material, so it's no shock when one of the cousins, Ling Feng (Chiao Chuang), a college student who initially comes off as a wastrel and, later, a cad, professes his love to Yung Wei after they've spent some time walking around the mountains and mooning over the Dream Lake of the title. The older brother, Ling Hsiao (Wang Hsieh), is an industrious farmer who is in line to take over the family business and he makes quite a positive first impression on Yung Wei. However, his heart belongs to Lulu (Lu Pai), described on the DVD case as "an aborigine girl," meaning that she's from a nearby village of Taiwan's indigenous people. Uncle Chang (Yen Chun, the film's director) constantly refers to Lulu and the "mountain folk" in derogatory terms. Meanwhile, the female cousin, Ling Yun (Ching Li), is secretly in love with the artist, Yu Ya Nan (Yueh Hua), who's constantly running around looking for "inspiration."
Early scenes show slices of life among these people, including the loss of a goat and Yung Wei's anger at Ling Feng when he sneaks into her room and reads her diary and then makes fun of the animal metaphors she attaches to each family member. Things start to heat up about halfway through when Yung Wei catches Ling Feng in a promiscuous act and turns against him. Other characters suffer romantic disappointment as well and Lulu's impetuous ways pit her mountain father against Uncle Chang. A crisis looms when one of the girls is revealed to be pregnant and wild accusations are flung over the identity of the father.
It's always a bit startling to me to see non-action Shaw Bros. films in which actors I've previously seen only as bad guys in kung fu movies are suddenly cast as virile leading men. When Wang Hsieh takes his shirt off and enthusiastically shows Yung Wei the texture of good soil, he reminded me of William Holden in PICNIC and not the Five Venoms clan chief he played in WEB OF DEATH (1976). Chiao Chuang, the main romantic male lead here, is someone I normally associate with secondary roles in 1960s Shaw Bros. costume epics. Here they try to pass him off as a Warren Beatty knock-off (think SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS). Yueh Hua, who plays the "eccentric" artist, also played the Monkey King in a series of Shaw Bros. films around the same time, as well as leads in numerous swordplay adventures. Ching Li, the shy, naïve country cousin who's bedazzled by the artist, went on to play strong female leads in numerous Shaw Bros. spectacles (e.g. BLOOD BROTHERS).
Fang Yin, who plays Yung Wei, is someone I've seen in other movies, but she never quite registered with me before. This movie changes that. She's quite attractive in this role, but in a down-to-earth, wholesome girl-next-door way. As everyone goes to pieces around her, she always stays calm and centered and talks sense to the other characters. Which isn't to say she doesn't succumb to her own crying jags now and then. And I must confess I have serious reservations about the way her particular romantic entanglement is resolved. On a fashion note, however, she boasts quite a colorful and eye-catching summer wardrobe (and all packed into a tiny case, too).
For me, the film is strongly reminiscent of a group of melodramas made in Hollywood in the years 1959-1963: A SUMMER PLACE (1959), SUSAN SLADE (1961), PARRISH (1961) and SPENCER'S MOUNTAIN (1963). (The last title was based on the same novel that inspired the hit 1970s TV series, "The Waltons.") All four were directed by Delmer Daves for Warner Bros. and all focused on romantic trials and tribulations among groups of extraordinarily attractive teens in generally rural settings. Teenage pregnancy is an issue in more than one of those films, as it is here.
MIST OVER DREAM LAKE includes a direct reference to an even older Hollywood film, PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948). The artist character here tells Yung Wei at one point that "You're the perfect portrait of Jenny. You're my Jenny, my inspiration." Later, Ling Yun confides in Yung Wei that she was told by the artist "that I'm his inspiration. I'm like Jenny in that famous movie." As a huge fan of PORTRAIT OF JENNIE, which starred the recently-deceased Jennifer Jones, I find it particularly gratifying that a reference to it pops up in a foreign film made 20 years later and thousands of miles from Hollywood.
The music score here is a typical Shaw Bros. hodgepodge of cues from other soundtracks. I noted cues by John Barry from THE CHASE (1966) and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967). At one point, a few bars from Aaron Copland's "The Red Pony" (another movie score) segue seamlessly into a cue from YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. Only in Hong Kong.
It's a fascinating movie for those with a taste for old-school Hong Kong melodrama with a Hollywood flavor. I have such a taste and I'm looking forward to more such movies, starting with MY DREAM BOAT (1967), another adaptation of a Chiung Yao novel.
