Girls Without Tomorrow

This is a gritty melodrama (albeit with bits of comedy thrown in) about five women, all involved or associated in some way or other with the prostitution trade. An excellent film that pulls no punches and portrays the women without glamour yet with respect.

Carina Lau Kar Ling, Fung Bo-Bo and the other leads do a fine job of making the characters entirely believable. The directing and editing are also well done. This is the kind of film that deserves greater exposure and might make Hong Kong movie fans of people who are not into action stuff but appreciate good acting, stories and three-dimensional female characters.

This film essentially revolves around a middle-aged woman by the name of "Hung" (Bo-Bo-Fung) who worked as a prostitute in her younger days but has since become a madame for a Chinese nightclub. Unlike many of the pimps operating in that area, Hung takes an interest in her girls and has even gone so far as to unofficially adopt one by the name of "Wa" (Carina Lau). For her part, Wa also has affection for Hung who took her in when her real mother was no longer able to take care of her. Unfortunately, the same respect that Wa has for Hung is not reciprocated by Hung's real daughter "Fong Siu-Ling" (Vivian Chow) who has recently made a name for herself as a television actress. And it's because of her ambitions that she does her best to distance herself from her mother even though Hung desperately wants a relationship with her. In addition to Wa, this film also features a couple of other attractive prostitutes named "Eva" (Pauline Chan) and "Yuen Ling-Yuk" (May Mei-Mei Lo) who have problems of their own as they each try to negotiate the difficulties of their profession as well. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film is, for all intents and purposes, a remake of a similarly titled film produced in 1988. One slight difference, however, is that this film incorporates a bit more humor than its predecessor which, interestingly enough, actually lessens the overall drama to a certain extent. Not that this movie doesn't have its fair share of drama. Likewise, this film has about the same number of scenes of a sexual nature--so viewer discretion is advised. Be that as it may, while I certainly don't consider this to be a top-notch film by any means, I suppose it passed the time fairly well, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

I have actually watched the 1992 movie "Ying Chao Nu Lang Zhi Er: Xian Dai Ying Zhao Nu Lang" (aka "Girls Without Tomorrow") once before. But I must admit that I had entirely forgotten about it. And thus, I opted to sit down and watch the movie once again here in 2024.

And no wonder that I had forgotten about the movie, because writer Chi Wong delivered a rather mundane, bland and sort of boring script for director David Lam to bring to the screen. I have to admit that I found very little entertaiment or enjoyment in watching the movie. So it wasn't really my particular cup of tea.

The cast ensemble in the movie is good, and there are some established Hong Kong performers on the cast list, with the likes of Carina Lau, Waise Lee, Andy Chi-On Hui and of course Ekin Cheng.

I doubt that I will ever return to watch this movie again, because it didn't leave me with an impressive viewing experience. And I do love Hong Kong cinema a lot, but of course not everything tha comes from the Hong Kong cinema is bound to be gold.

My rating of "Ying Chao Nu Lang Zhi Er: Xian Dai Ying Zhao Nu Lang" lands on a very generous four out of ten stars.

Five of the most beautiful Hong Kong actress stars in this story about prostitution, and love between a mother and a daughter. The movie is okay, but there's something creepy about this movie and I can never watch it all the way through (that's why the poor rating). Can a movie be jinxed ? You can try for yourself and watch this movie. I usually like movies that features these stars, but this one I can't handle. Can a real life grudge of Hong Kong prostitute be shadowing this movie (move over Sarah Michelle Geller) ? Asides from that, this is a third of Hong Kong movie which has similar story line about few young prostitutes. The two others (Prostitutes 1988, and Prostitutes 1992) are good movies with relatively complex story lines. Watch those instead if you like this plot.