Dressed to Kill, Part 2: The Action Films of Lily Ho

Until her stunning turn in INTIMATE CONFESSIONS OF A CHINESE COURTESAN, the Shaw Brothers studio never seemed to know exactly what to do with actress Lily Ho. They put her in melodramas and comedies, kung fu epics and contemporary thrillers, but you never get the feeling, watching her films, that she felt challenged by the material or by her co-stars. She looked so gorgeous on film, and her fashion sense was so exquisite, that acting was almost superfluous. A typical Lily Ho vehicle called for costume changes every five minutes or so as she verbally sparred with her leading men, or teased them with a song, or held them at gunpoint. The men, for the most part, look besotted and befuddled. Who could blame them?

In the Hong Kong Film Archive publication “The Shaw Screen: A Preliminary Study,” Edward Lam argues that Ho never had a leading man who measured up to her sophistication and wit (he suggests that Betty Pei Ti, the lesbian brothel owner in INTIMATE CONFESSIONS, was the closest thing to “Ho’s perfect match on screen”). It wasn’t that she played the lipstick lesbian; it was more that Ho projected a sublime self-sufficiency that left little room for the men in her films, at least in the action films, to play anything but an equally ornamental role. As Lam points out, in film after film in which Lily Ho “was technically the female lead, she came to represent the macho hero since such a persona simply did not figure in the film.” In ANGEL WITH THE IRON FISTS (1967), she seduces and abandons poor Tang Chin in order to infiltrate the gang led by dominatrix Tina Chin, and in THE VENUS TEAR DIAMOND (1971), Ling Yun, playing a rival jewel thief to Ho’s cat burglar, is always one step behind as they both scheme to steal the titular jewel. Plus, her singing is way better than his in the nightclub scene.

Mark wasn’t impressed with ANGEL WITH THE IRON FISTS, but I thought it was fun. It’s pure cheese, but a brand of cheese that Austin Powers or Stephen Chow’s secret agent in FROM BEIJING WITH LOVE would fondly recognize. (Imagine what Ling Ling Chat could have done with a purse that shoots in two directions!) VENUS TEAR DIAMOND is harder to take, although director Inoue Umetsugu has a decent reputation for musicals and sensitive dramas of the sort that used to be called “women’s pictures.” It hasn’t aged well. Lily Ho, on the other hand, is always luminous.

    “When we see a particularly ugly dress, we would say, “Forget about it. Even Lily Ho wouldn’t look good in it.” Fan Quote from Hong Kong Movie News, Nov. 1971.

Edward Lam also quotes an interview with Ho published in Southern Screen, the Shaw studio organ, where she admits to “no other hobbies, just clothes,” and lists among the contents of her closet nine full length fur coats, five fur jackets, two stoles, and nine wigs. There’s a startling moment in VENUS TEAR DIAMOND when she whips off her long wig onscreen and shakes out a short bob, presumably her own hair, but who knows? Male fans responded to her smoldering sexuality, but women enjoyed her films too, studying her extravagant ensembles for fashion tips.

It’s entirely possible that Lily Ho could have spent her entire career making nothing but fluff. But somehow the stars aligned in 1972, and she was cast as Ai Nu, a young woman forced into prostitution who plots bloody revenge in Chor Yuen’s INTIMATE CONFESSIONS OF A CHINESE COURTESAN. The film is both dramatically satisfying and pure camp fun, and it briefly made Lily Ho an international sensation. She won a Best Actress award at the 1973 Asia Film Festival for her performance in THE 14 AMAZONS (also 1972), but she is remembered these days as Ai Nu, the seductive, avenging fury, the killer who was so beautiful that her victims welcomed death at her hands.

 Here’s a clip of Lily Ho fighting Bolo Yeung in THE LADY PROFESSIONAL, a film I have yet to see, but I believe the world is a better place because it exists.

Tags: Chor Yuen, Lily Ho, Shaw Brothers