|
  |
In Memory of the Star-Studded MP & GI In 1956, Loke Wan-tho of Singapore's Cathay Organisation established in Hong Kong Motion Picture & General Investment Co Ltd (MP & GI) which thrived in just a few years. Loke Wan-tho, the life and soul of star-studded MP & GI, is himself the brightest star. MP & GI was famed for its Mandarin comedies and musicals. In fact, its Cantonese unit was set up before the Mandarin unit, producing box office successes such as The Romance of Jade Hall (1957) and Bitter Lotus (1960), though it was those middlebrow and westernised features which became MP & GI's trade mark. MP & GI's Cantonese features thus provide useful yardsticks against which their origin and interrelationship with the Mandarin ones are measured. What connections and conflicts do these Cantonese films have with the rest of the Cantonese film world? The two units converged, at the release of The Greatest Civil War on Earth (1961), breaking the deadlock reached by the segregated Mandarin and Cantonese worlds. The world of homeland sentiments and classy Shanghai school so frequently portrayed in Mandarin contemporaries is slowly fading away, pulling itself closer to the Hong Kong society. The focus on Cathay/MP & GI in this issue allows us to share with the writers opinions, first-hand experience, and research that they have of the company, apart from supplying us with the tracks left behind by those involved in the preparation of the film retrospective to be launched between March and June. Despite the vanishing of the MP & GI myth, we still remember fondly the orbit once frequented by the galaxy of stars and how precious it was to have these stars, both on and off the screen, gathered together for a united goal. [clkwok@lcsd.gov.hk] 
Fine acting by comedians Liu Enjia (left) and Leung Sing-po sparkles with wit in The Greatest Civil War on Earth (1961)
|
