Blue Skies: If there is one genre that is neglected today more than any other, it's the musical. Back in the days Hollywood was cranking out musical after musical. That slowed down in the late 50s although other countries, such as Hong Kong, kept on producing them. Shaw Brothers, besides being famous for their Huang Mei operas and martial arts films, were also quite the studio for producing musicals like the one I watched tonight.

Blue Skies is an interesting if not completely typical musical of its day. Cheng Pei Pei stars in this lavish musical as a girl who wants to join show business but her father won't let her as he feels her morals will suffer. When she does in fact become a star via being a last minute replacement for a cranky dancer she does indeed go down the path towards self-destruction. Between losing her boyfriend (played by one of my favorite Hong Kong actors, Peter Chen Ho,) and being horribly scarred in a car accident, her life becomes Hell for her and, in typical fashion, she is saved in the end.

The clichés are many and that is to be expected. This isn't really art but it is a lot of fun to watch. Some of the musical numbers are quite fun and one in particular, a dream sequence, really reminded me of the Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse dance number from Singin' in the Rain. So, while it was good, I don't know that I'd recommend it for a first Shaw musical experience; Hong Kong Rhapsody would be a much better choice.

So after watching three dvds today(!) my backlog has been reduced to 195. If I can keep this up, I may be back to normal in a month or two.

Labels: Hong Kong, Musical