"酒寧剩欠尋常債,劍不虛施細碎讎。" Take a rest for a while :))) 俺很愛"老土花生麵包"配Taiwan Gold Medal Beers. lol 這人生哪,何須當英雄,吃好喝好且好好活著;『相濡以沫,不如相忘於江湖。』此語出自《莊子·大宗師》:「泉涸,魚相與處於陸,相呴以濕,相濡以沫,不如相忘於江湖。與其譽堯而非桀也,不如兩忘而化其道。 」Lan~*
Five Days of Yam-Pak Movies ~ Day 3: Lovesick // 為情顛倒 (dir. Chiang Wai-Kwong/蔣偉光, 1952) - starring Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙)
Commentary below the cut!
Summary
The daughter of a shipping tycoon, Yam Ming Fai (Yam Kim Fai) runs the family business in Hong Kong while pretending to be a man, but dreams of being able to marry her male subordinate. Unfortunately for her, she finds out that he is already dating someone, a small-time singer named Chan Ping Sin (Pak Suet Sin). What else is a girl to do but try to seduce her crush’s girlfriend, to force them to break up? (Many things, surely, but the multitude of other options do not occur to Ming Fai.) But while Ming Fai wins the battle, she loses the war, because although Ping Sin falls for her, her crush gets engaged to another woman instead. There is also a subplot about a working-class couple who want to get married despite their parents’ disapproval, which feels almost like a whole separate movie folded into this one.
Despite the inevitably conservative ending, it’s a fun watch, made funnier by how the movie seems to wink at the audience with regard to the queer elements. At the start, the script has Ming Fai assert both her heterosexuality and gender-conformity to a female friend, but in the film itself Yam is bursting with a cheeky charm not found in her other characters, who are generally rather staid and earnest. There’s also a heavy emphasis on the flirting with Pak’s character, and there are multiple instances of Ming Fai boasting to her male crush about winning Ping Sin’s affections – supposedly to make him jealous, but she seems far too gleeful for this to be the case. Ping Sin herself is also an interesting case; there’s a large contrast between her harsh, dismissive treatment of her boyfriend and her sweet attitude towards Ming Fai throughout, which subtly undermines the ending wherein she returns to the former. And it would be remiss not to add that yes, the character names are definitely riffing on the actors’ names – “Yam Ming Fai” and a lot of the other characters’ names are obvious enough, but even the “Chan” in “Chan Ping Sin” comes from Pak Suet Sin’s real name, Chan Suk Leung/陳淑良. Make of that what you will.
Note: Sadly, this is the only extant film wherein Yam plays a female character who is romantically linked with Pak’s character in some way; copies no longer seem to exist for the five other examples, namely Lucky Strike/福至心靈 (1951), Stage-Fans’ Sweetheart/戲迷情人 (1952), Two Naughty Girls/一對胭脂馬 (1952), Love Affairs of the Opera Master/伶王艷史 (1953), The Clumsy Lover/糊塗脂粉客 (1953).
Links:
My post about Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin being queer icons
by Bai Juyi (mid-to-late Tang Dynasty poet, 8th and 9th Century)
歐冶子死千年后 A thousand years since Ou-ye Zi had died,
精靈暗授張鴉九 His soul, in gloom, for Zhang Yajiu did guide.
鴉九鑄劍吳山中 And Yajiu forged a Sword among Wu hills,
天與日時神借功 From Heaven borrowed time, from gods their skills.
金鐵騰精火翻焰 Flames fluttered, ores’ and irons’ spirits soared
踴躍求為鏌琊劍 A Moye Sword they leapt up and restored.
劍成未試十餘年 The Sword spent ten years idle, and then some,
有客持金買一觀 Before a Guest paid sums to have a look.
誰知閉匣長思用 The case, alas, stayed closed in want of use;
三尺青蛇不肯蟠 The three-feet green snake dared not leave its nook.
客有心 劍無口 The Guest had a spark, the Sword bore no mark,
客代劍言告鴉九 The Guest spoke Sword’s words, plead that Yajiu hark:
君勿矜我玉可切 “Boast not, sir, stones of jade that I can slice;
君勿誇我鐘可刜 Gloat not, sir, heavy bells that I can maul;
不如持我決浮雲 Do better, hold me, cleave the clouds adrift,
無令漫漫蔽白日 Their boundless blinds from bright of sun dispel.
為君使
無私之光及萬物 Your selfless glow shall I expand to all
蟄蟲昭蘇萌草出 Those hibernating wake, and sprouts propel.”
Ou-ye Zi was a swordsmith in the state of Yue in the Spring and Autumn period. The Yue-jue Shu (available only in Chinese, sorry) said that when Ou-ye Zi worked, the Mount Chijin pried itself apart, and tin arose within, and the brook of Ruoye stopped in its flow, and copper arose within; and Master of Rain poured water to clean any dirt, and the Lord of Thunder blew the winds and raised the fires; and aquatic dragons held up the furnace, and the Lord of the Heaven filled it with burning coal; the Laws of Tai-yi descended unto earth, and all essence of the world were bestowed unto the sword.
Moye, his daughter, was also a swordsmith, and she and her husband Ganjiang made swords on the orders of He Lü, the king of Wu, and the swords bore the names of this couple. All three swordsmiths names later became references to great swords that required great wielders.
Several stories existed to explain what happened to this couple and their child later on. These were retold in the 20th century story "Forging the Swords" by Lu Xun, the English translation of which can be read in pages 43 through 53 here.
If Zhang Yajiu actually existed, he might have been a contemporary of Bai Juyi’s. Not much about this swordsmith is known.
Green snakes were often a metaphor for swords. The Emperor Gao of Han was said to have slayed a white serpent as he rebelled against the Qin dynasty, and Bai Juyi described the action as “beheading the white snake using the green.”
Among the Miscellaneous Chapters of the Book of Zhuangzi, the sword befitting a Son of Heaven was said to be able to cleave the floating clouds above and penetrate every division of the earth below, and
Let this sword be once used, and the princes are all reformed, and the whole kingdom submits.
Bai Juyi, along with his friend and fellow poet, Yuan Zhen, wrote a series of poems in the more ancient Yuefu style, whose explicit goals were to provide, in cryptic words, social commentary and sympathy for people from all walks of life.
Bai wrote 50 poems to this purpose; The Sword of Yajiu was the penultimate. In the preface to all 50 poems, Bai stated the thoughts that drove each piece, and the one for the The Sword of Yajiu was "to think of breaking through blockage and gloom".
rules: post the last seven lines of your wip, and then tag no more than seven people to continue
i am also really lazy and havent been active on tumblr much so if you see this post, then YOU 🫵 have been tagged!! no matter if we're mutuals or not!!
now onto the WIP part... if I'm being completely honest last night i started a self-insert fanfic because of mu weishuang, a character from 花亦山心之月, a chinese otome game without translation. and um i wrote in english first but i kept hearing her voice in chinese and um well i tried rewriting the fic in my really mediocre chinese as well 😭 so my last 7 sentences are actually last 2 sentences of the wip and first 5 sentences of my attempt at chinese fic......
There is no third encounter. Mu Weishuang is in front of you, blocking the blow with her own sword, barely panting although she’d sprinted across the clearing to reach you.
Shu Yan is done being sold—first by her parents, and then by the owner of the brothel where she has been a serving girl.
Now a runaway with a price on her head, she has to choose: the dangers of being a young girl alone in the world, or the dangers of accompanying a legendary swordsman bent on revenge?
And maybe, if she can convince him to take her along, he will learn that Shu Yan isn't the only one who needs the help of others.
ABOUT THE PIC:
I made this one on Friday. It's been a journey getting this far, and I really like this version. The dots in the back really give the background some texture, and the combination of the square Chinese font and the Montserrat font in the small print I find particularly nice to look at.
PIC DESCRIPTION:
A swordsman named Li Ming on a yellow background. He stands above the words RUNAWAY and the Chinese word 劍客 or swordsman. On the top is the title: Tales of the Swordsman. On the Bottom: A wuxia story by JF Lee and 劍客傳說。