Everlasting Love 天長地久

A classic of Cantonese cinema - Everlasting Love 天長地久, starring screen idols Hung Sin Nui (紅線女 ) and Ng Chor Fan (吳楚帆). What's the secret of its enduring appeal ?  It premiered in 1955 at a time of unprecedented social change, when traditional assumptions were being challenged by new ideas.  This  film is more than a love story : it deals with fundamental human values in difficult times. The print may be aging but its message is relevant today.

A train crosses countryside that is now  mega city.  Trains carried millions out of China into Hong Kong. The poorest of the poor though - came by boat from the Guangzhou delta or simply walked. Mui Ga Lei (played by Hung Sin Nui) is a country girl but not a peasant : her qipao is old fashioned but modest.  Her father's died so she's come to Hong Kong to find her kinsman, who's a caretaker in a fancy western-style restaurant with uniformed doormen and sophisticated clientele.  She's out of place. The restaurant is managed by  Chan Sai Wah (played by Ng Chor Fan). in his fancy western suit, he looks the part but his authority is constantly undermined. He can't even order new curtains without approval from the owner, Patriarch Yan.  The reason Chan has his job is that Old Mr Yan wanted a successor but his own son was neither competent : so he arranged that his daughter should marry someone capable, effectively adopting good stock into the family : the family unit is what counts, not the individual. Though Chan and his wife have a son,  their marriage is a disaster, both desperately bitter.  Because Chan's mother and sister have no income of their own, they live in the Yan family mansion. They "need tea, have tea, need water have water" as extended family. But like Mr Chan, they are dependent on those with money and power.  Old Mr Yan think's he's doing the Chans a favour by arranging for her to marry a rich man. He can't comprehend that she might object. Chan's sister wants to move out, even if that means living in a bed space in a tenement, but her mother refuses : it would damage her son's social status.


Yan Junior is the company accountant, though he's work shy and scheming.  He offers Miss Mui a job as secretary though she knows nothing about working in an office. He takes her round town to get a modern haircut and fancy western clothes.  Her kinsman warns her that things might not be as easy as they seem.   Miss Mui sees that Mr Chan wanders in the restaurant gardens, looking stressed.  Hung Sin Nui's voice had a soft tremolo, like a caress, so she could express tenderness while saying simple things. You can hear why it's balm for Chan's troubled soul.  Yan Junior invites Miss Mui for dinner, but it's in a hotel bedroom. She runs away, so he tells Mrs Chan that her husband's been seen with another woman. "I want a divorce!" she screams, but her father says no.  Miss Mui gets fired and makes a scene in the restaurant since she thought Chan was widowed.  Mr Chan's mother dies, a suicide, and his sister runs away. Scandal after scandal !  In the office, Chan has $20,000 but can't put it in the safe because Yan Junior's got the combination and has gone out.  He's had enough. He wants to run away.  When Miss Mui sees him off, they decide, on the spur of the monent to elope, with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

They take the ferry to Macau, as millions did then. Vintage shots !  Panoramas of the city when it was a small, sleepy hamlet. Fishing junks in the inner harbour, and the outer harbour before the bay was reclaimed.  They check into a hotel which was new then and was still there til not so long ago. They visit scenic spots like the facade of St Paul's and the statue of Colonel Mesquita killing Chinese people in China. That's gone, which is maybe just as well.  Hung Sin Nui sings the song which made this film immortal.  In real life, she was a Cantonese opera singer who could elide lines so they dipped and swooped gracefully.
The idyll doesn't last : Yan Junior arrives demanding the $20,000. Chan said he was owed that for all the years his pay was witheld by his wife, but he returns it all but what he's spent. Chan and Mui now move to a shared house in a tenement in a shabby old part of town. But their housemates are friendly, everyone chips together.  Chan's job offers fall through because news of what happened in Hong Kong has filtered through.  He pounds the streets, increasingly desperate.  Mui becomes pregnant but this adds to his distress : how will he support a wife and child ? "We love each other. As long as we have hands and feet, we will survive" she says.  He's reduced to a job as a tout grabbing ferry passengers to hotels. He makes nothing "You have to grab and fight or you can't live!" screams the boss. Mui falls and has a miscarriage. As she lies in bed, Mrs Chan and her lawyer arrive from Hong Kong.  When Mrs Chan sees Mr Chan, now wearing Chinese working class clothes, she sneers.  She wants a divorce with damages and sole custody of the son. He gives in: he has no choice. Years pass. Mui gets a job in a factory - great shots of early industrial conditiions - while Chan helps the women in the kitchen.  He's humiliated. But she says, if society doesn't treat us well, we care about each other.  "We dreamed" he says, of "Hang Fuk,Fai Lok" (happiness and prosperity) but where has it all gone ? "As long as we stick together", she says "we can make things around us better even if we cabn't change te world". .  

In those days, food was bought each day from the market, wrapped in newspaper. One day, Chan reads the news. His son has been appointed new manager of Old Mr Yan's businesses.  He wants to return to Hong Kong "My son will look after us". But she won't go.  If she goes with him,he might not find the happiness he seeks.  He promises to send for her when he's rich again, but she tells him that wealth was never part of their bargain, just love. This time he takes the ferry, he travels alone.

In the Yan mansion, everyone's partying,  everything glitters., Chan, in peasant clothes, unshaven, looks in and sees his son feted by all.  But he can't go in.  What if he jinxes his son's succcess ? Suddenly, Miss Mui's kinsman greets him. He's remembered. But Chan disappears into the darkness.  Back in Macau in the tenement neigbourhood, he finds that Miss Mui has moved away.   She's left a letter : "I can't give you the happiness you need".  He walks through narrow alleyways and shares bed space in a doss house.  He's sick and has no money. Even from this he gets evicted because he can't pay. Now homeless he paces the streets, picking up cigarette butts. Then he sees a poster for a Cantonese Opera - the epitome of Cantonese culture. Miss Mui has become an opera star ! As he stands gazing, she spots him and takes him back into her dressing room.  Over the years she's worked hard and has travelled all round doing shows.  He can barely speak "I'm useless", he says, "You were right to leave me". "But from now on we can be together again," she says, "and be happy". Since he hasn't eaten for days, she goes to order food. She's gone just a moment but he has run away again, unable to face being a burden on her. She runs out of the theatre, chasing his shadow as it retreats in the distance.

In real life, Hung Sin Nui's career as a star in Hong Kong ended when she returned to Guangzhou in 1956 with her then husband Ma Tze Tsang to set up a Cantonese opera institute in the capital of Cantonese culture. He died in 1964. She was caught up in the Cultural Revolution, denounced as a class enemy by her own daughter, but lived to be 88.  As for Ng Chor Fan, he was the doyen of Cantonese cinema , not just as actor but organizer, keeping the industry together under the Japanese occupation. His first wife was a beauty and movie star, but couldn't cope with wartime conditions and died young. It's not too hard to see where the themes in this movie come from.