Ye gu niang

SWEET AND WILD (1966), a romantic comedy-drama produced by Hong Kong's Shaw Bros. studio, is also a "singing match" musical, similar to SONGFEST (1963) and THE SHEPHERD GIRL (1964), both of which I've already reviewed on IMDb. These films make use of a rural Chinese courtship ritual in which interested parties sing back and forth to each other with the girl picking her mate by how well he can "match" her with his singing. (I don't know whether such a ritual actually exists or whether it was made up for these films.) Here, the formula is upended by a pack of modern young men, friends of the spoiled nephew of a local landowner, who sing with electric guitars and rock 'n' roll accompaniment and descend on a village where the local girls pick fruit while the young men work the fishing boats. It's never clear where or when this is taking place. The traditional village life depicted could be from any point within the last 200 years in China, but certainly not in Hong Kong, a thoroughly modern metropolis by the date of this film, while the rich boy and his friends are strictly from an affluent urban 1960s capitalist class, like nothing you would have found in Mainland China in the decades after the Communist takeover and the year before the Cultural Revolution. My guess is that the film takes place in Taiwan, where in 1966 you still had rural villages with farmers and fishermen and bustling cities like Taipei where boys dressed in "mod" fashions like those seen here.

The plot gets pretty complicated at times and focuses on Xiaofang (Li Ching) the prettiest girl in the village and the best singer among the women. She is unmarried and meets her match pretty early on in Dahai, a young fisherman (Ling Yun) who is newly arrived to work on his friend's boat and has some early antagonistic encounters with Xiaofang that serve to delay the progress of true love. In one great sequence, the two act as seconds for friends who can't sing as well as they can and they sing to each other across a bridge at night. The two are horrified when the entire village turns out to congratulate them on their engagement, having assumed from the heartfelt way they sang to each other that they were courting each other.

The rich boy, flustered at every turn, especially after Xiaofang has aided in the escape of the household maid upon whom he had designs, steals his grandmother's jewelry and blames it on the maid, putting Xiaofang in a position of responsibility. The uncle, who owns the land on which Xiaofang and her mother live, offers to drop any charges if Xiaofang agrees to marry him. She says she'll do so if he agrees to participate in a traditional singing match. With the help of the nephew and his friends, the aged uncle tries to inject a modern element into the match. The result is quite a comedy of errors, culminating in a big fight at a beach house between the villagers and the rich boy and his friends.

It's a lovely film shot in picturesque Taiwan locations with its heart firmly on the side of tradition. The songs that Xiaofang and the villagers sing are quite beautiful to my ears. (The modern warblings of the rich boy and his friends are another matter.) The plot moves well and the cast of familiar Shaw Bros. players looks very comfortable in this setting. If there's anything to criticize it's the wanton attitude of the rich boy and his friends towards the village girls and the rather lighthearted treatment their harassment of them is given in the film. At one point early on, all eight of the young men tie Xiaofang to a tree and announce their intention to strip off all her clothes and it seems to be regarded as a youthful prank rather than an act of sexual assault. Fortunately, the villagers arrive in time to intervene. Later on, the boys decide to get revenge on Xiaofang and plot to try it again when she comes to the house to make a delivery. The rich boy's grandmother (Ouyang Shafei) gets there first, unexpectedly, and, with the lights out, is subjected to the treatment Xiaofang was to be given before the boys realize their mistake. It's quite a vicious act, but is treated in a comic fashion.

The star, Li Ching, appeared in many Shaw Bros. films, including other musicals (HONG KONG RHAPSODY), Huangmei Operas (THE LOTUS LAMP), historical dramas (THE KING WITH MY FACE), contemporary dramas (DEAD END), and swordplay adventures (VENGEANCE OF A SNOWGIRL), many of which I've also reviewed on IMDb. The male lead, Ling Yun, is best known for his action roles (THE IRON BUDDHA, FIVE TOUGH GUYS, KILLER CLANS, THE LAST DUEL), both at Shaw and elsewhere, although he never became a major star in the field. They're both quite good here and make a suitable on-screen match. I don't know if they provided their own singing voices or not. My assumption is they didn't.