ENG | 港
POSTPONED: Pai Niang Niang: The Last Osmanthus Blossom
白孃孃:一朶遲桂花
Director : Isabel Wong
Year: 2023
Duration: 65 minutes
5/29/2024 (Wed), 4:00 pm [POSTPONED]
McCormick Screening Room, UCI, 92697
Synopsis
Rebecca Pan is not only an icon of the Hong Kong music world but also one of the city’s earliest boundary-pushing cultural pioneers. Her early career as a singer and her later success as an actress are well-known, but arguably the most important milestone of her oeuvre—the first ever Chinese-language musical, Pai Niang Niang (1972)—was thought to have not been captured on film and faded into obscurity. This work used the Broadway musical model to adapt the famous Chinese myth Legend of the White Snake. Bringing together Eastern and Western theatrical styles, the production combined Chinese traditional music, dance, costume and stage design with modern Western concepts. Despite this bold attempt, the resulting work was ahead of its time and was not a commercial success. In terms of music, Joseph Koo, who had returned from study abroad that year, was invited to participate in the music creation. This also led to the cooperation between Joseph Koo and James Wong, and they wrote their first piece “If Loving You Means Hurting You”. In April 2023, however, a partial film record of the performance was miraculously discovered. The restored surviving footage has become the finale of this documentary film, “Pai Niang Niang: The Last Osmanthus Blossom”, bringing the saga to a flawless conclusion.
About the Director
Isabel Wong is a screenwriter, director, multi-media producer, and curator. She has worked in television as a script reviewer for drama content and as a programme producer for variety shows. She has written more than 20 drama series, and she has produced music programmes and award ceremonies. In 2021, she was appointed Chief Content Officer of TVB Music Group, with a focus on album and concert production. She founded the studio Artcanteen and is passionate about documentary filmmaking. In addition to documenting the life of the legendary Rebecca Pan and the musical Pai Niang Niang, she is working on a documentary celebrating the achievements of Filipino musicians in Hong Kong.