Bunny Girl Lin Dai

Lin Dai 林黛, forever young and cherished.

Lin Dai was loved because she was much more than an actress. She was a symbol of the hopes of her era. When she died, it was as though those dreams were shattered. Lin Dai's father was a powerful politician in Guangxi, a province with a tradition of fiercely independent reformist leaders. A very few year later, the demographic upheaval reversed, and millions fled the Communists.  Everyone was a refugee of some kind. A whole nation with subliminal psychic trauma. In the west, it's hard for people to understand.  Hong Kong boomed, thanks to the influx of people, money and expertise from the North, transforming the city from quiet bywater to metropolis.  Chinese cinema boomed, too, serving the worldwide diaspora. Lin Dai was an icon of the optimism of the time - progressive thinking, despite on-going struggle.  She was a "modern girl" but even more so, a girl whose freshness and innocence symbolized something even more eternal.  So when she died, aged only 29, it was as if the lights went out all over  the world.  Please read my piece Lin Dai Remembered here and also numerous other articles on Chinese cinema, culture, history etc. 

Remembering Lin Dai

Fifty years ago today, Lin Dai 林黛 committed suicide. She was 29 years old, at the height of her career. Her death sent shock waves through Chinese communities all over the world. It's hard to overestimate the impact.  I can still recall the sense of utter disbelief when the news broke.  Lin Dai seemed to have everything going for her. Her movies were guaranteed box office hits, artistically as well as commercially top notch. She seemed to radiate happiness whatever she did. On camera, she seemed to glow. Even in private life she was vibrant and charming. Why did she want to die?  There had been a trivial family misunderstanding but nothing to suggest suicide. She was given a proper Catholic funeral, since the bishop ruled that her death wasn't intentional. To this day, fans flock to give their respects at her pink marble tombstone. After  her death, her husband kept their room exactly as she had left it, with her hair in her hairbrush and her lipsticks on the dressing table. When he died a few years ago, the room was preserved intact in a museum.

Lin Dai was loved because she was much more than an actress. She was a symbol of the hopes of her era. When she died, it was as though those dreams were shattered. Lin Dai's father was a powerful politician in Guangxi, a province with a tradition of fiercely independent reformist leaders, among them  General Bai Chongxi (白崇禧) hero of the anti-Japanese resistance. The Japanese invasion created one of the biggest population upheavals in modern history. Millions of Chinese moved as refugees to the distant  western provinces of Guangxi, Sichaun and Yunnan. Later, the demographic upheaval reversed, and millions fled the Communists. In many ways, Lin Dai represented Brave New China.  She was making a fresh start in a new region and in an industry which played an important role in the modernization of China. In her first movie, 翠翠 Singing under the Moon (1953) she plays a country orphan, devoted to her grandfather. People could identify with her fresh, youthful optimism.

In 1957, Lin Dai was signed by Shaw Brothers Studios, bigger and more ambitious than any other Chinese (and many western) film studios. Shaw Brothers put Lin Dai in high-budget historical extravaganzas. far more sophisticated than anything she'd done until that time. In Diau Charn (貂蟬) her big breakthrough, she played a heroine who united warring kingdoms.  The Kingdom and the Beauty (江山美人) beat all box office records. Lin Dai plays the peasant girl who steals the heart of an Emperor in disguise. It's one of the best Shaw Brothers movies of all time. It's a shame that the company that bought the rights to Shaw's catalogue hasn't done much to make them better known. The Kingdom and the Beauty is so good that it could easily find a p;lace in international cinema. Lin Dai also starred in Beyond the Great Wall and The Last Woman of Shang, both released after her death. In Beyond the Great Wall, she plays a heroine who goes into exile to save her lover the Emperor and her country. These movies aren't ponderous, stultified costume dramas because Lin Dai plays her roles as convincing human beings. The shot above shows her famous pout, followed by a slow sideways glance that often bursts into a smile.

Lin Dai also made an opera-based movie, Madam White Snake (1962), but her singing voice was untrained, better suited to more light-hearted musicals,  and cheerful comedies like Les Belles, Bachelors Beware and Cinderella and her little angels and Love Parade, with an unusual story line based on fashion shows, for which she designed the costumes.  She was a "modern girl". Lin Dai's vivacious charm makes these films sparkle, but they're much better than similar films from Hollywood.  She was also a serous dramatic actress. In The Blue and the Black Parts 1 and 2, released after her death, she plays a brave woman whose life is damaged by war.

But the movie that makes Lin Dai immortal has to be Love Without End (不了情, 1961). This is a version of La Traviata. The heroine even retreats to a remote island in her last illness, where she's tended by a Catholic priest. Lin Dai plays a virtuous nightclub singer whose beloved faces financial ruin. To save him, she agrees to go abroad with a rich man, but gives her virginity to the boyfriend first. He doesn't understand, and walks out on her in an extremely moving scene where he skulks along a back alley while she watches from above. Eventually, he finds out that she sacrificed herself for his sake, but when he tracks her down, it's too late. Like Violetta Valéry, she dies. If only this film were readily available outside Region 3. It's one of the most iconic movies of Hong Kong in  that period, describing the values of its time. The title song is so famous that it's seared forever in the memories of those who were there.  It's not actually her singing voice,  but it breaks the heart.
 
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La Traviata - moral, universal?

Verdi's La Traviata starts its second run of three this year at the Royal Opera House. But please read La Traviata and the Credit Crunch by David Chandler in Opera Today.  And my review of the November production with a much stronger cast. "One way of thinking about La Traviata is to consider it as a portrayal of bubble wealth that makes artistic capital from the shimmering, rainbow hues of the surface rather than showing any interest in what sustains the bubble."
 
Violetta lives the champagne lifestyle to excess because it's like an escape from brutal reality. Like the petals of a camellia which shatter at the height of their beauty, La Dame des Camellias knows she has to live for the moment. Yet she can see the wider situation and the effects on other people. That gives her the true nobility Germont respects.

The lady in the photo is Lin Dai 林黛 (1934-64) perhaps the most celebrated Chinese actress of her time. She came from an upper class background in Guangxi, a poor province ruled by an enlightened, reformist leadership under General Bai Chongxi (father of Professor Pai of Kunqu Opera fame) After the Communists came power, Lin Dai's family became refugees. Lin Dai started making movies at 17 and starred in many great classics from historic costume dramas like The Kingdom and the Beauty to comedies.

In Love Without End (不了情) (1961) Lin Dai plays Qing Qing, an orphan from the country who comes to neon-lit Hong Kong. Wearing a simple qipao, she sings a folksong in a nightclub, but impresses the patrons so much she becomes resident singer. Nightclubs were an important part of social life then, so they represent much more than entertainment. Qing Qing falls in love with Teng Pengnan (Kwan Shan 关山) a rich young man. But Teng's father dies suddenly, leaving huge debts. Pengnan has to save the family business and honour but can't find the funds. So Qing Qing rescues the Tengs by giving them money under a false identity. Qing Qing then seduces Pengnan (shocking in those chaste days) because she wants to lose her virginity with him. She's got to spend a year as the "secretary" of the millionaire who gave her the money but at least her first night will be love. So she's heroic because she sacrifices herself for others. But Pengnan, disgusted and enraged, walks out when he finds out. Eventually they reconcile and are about to marry when Qing Qing discovers that she has a fatal illness. So she runs away to a retreat on  a remote island where she's tended by a Catholic priest. In real life, there were Catholic ministries in Hong Kong's outer islands, and Lin Dai was a devout Catholic. But the La Traviata connection is obvious. Pengnan tracks her down, but, as in the opera, it's too late. 

Lin Dai is incandescent on screen. She was a "natural girl", whose cheeky charm and perky optimism appealed to audiences in the turbulent 50's and 60's, but she's also an archetype of the ideal Chinese heroine who throughout history sacrifices her beauty for higher causes.  So  Love Without End is even more in the tradition of  Diau Charn (貂蝉) and Beyond the Great Wall. than a mere remake of La Traviata.  (Diau Charn falls in love with the general of a despot she's on a mission to destroy. In Beyond the Great Wall, a royal concubine marries a Mongol to save the nation), So Qing Qing in  Love Without End is Violetta who can see beyond conspicuous consumption. Consumption got them in other ways!  Lin Dai committed suicide at the age of 29. Possibly it was an aberration, an accident that went wrong. Her husband left their room intact until he died last year. Even the hair in her hairbrushes, and lipsticks half used.  So maybe life imitates art. The song below (sung by Gu Mei, Lin Dai lip syncs) is so famous that it evokes the whole period.

Please also see Chinese Carmen Wild, Wild Rose and lots more on Chinese film and values on this site.

Chinese La Traviata - Lin Dai Love without End

There is no goddess of Chinese film greater than Lin Dai. Yes, others had greater range and the opera singers are icons, but Lin Dai touched something in the Chinese soul and continues to do so today, nearly 50 years after her tragic death.

This is a clip from the end of perhaps her most famous film, Love Without End. (But liu Ching in Cantonese). She's sitting on an island and flashbacks of her past fill her mind. She was a sweet, simple girl who became a nightclub star and fell in love with a playboy. He has money problems so she goes abroad with a rich man to pay his debts. When she comes back, she has bliss with lover and he finds out and walks out on her. Then she gets a fatal illness and retreats to the island to die (where she is cared for by a Catholic priest). Finally lover tracks her down and they're reunited but she dies, anyway. La Traviata ! Only the screenplay opens out wider and Lin Dai's portrayal is so memorable, so poignant, that no one has ever been able to top it.

The second clip shows the beginning of the film - wonderful historic footage of Hong Kong neon in 1961. Nightclubs were serious business then, the "modern" equivalent of teahouse or opera house. They were a cultural indicator of modern ideas and westernization. We see the young singer, in an old fashioned cheongsam, sing a folk song with a "mor dun" show band complete with electric guitar and bongo drums. Culture clash ! She goes on to be a big star but she is still a nice girl with Chinese values. In that era everyone was uprooted, thrown into different worlds, so people identified with Lin Dai, the nice, pure girl who didn't survive.

That's why Love Without End (Shaw Brothers 1961) is such a classic, in its own way a historic document. It's available on DVD with (I think) English subtitles. It deserves its place in the iconography of world film.



More nightclub scenes below for aficionados of 50's style. Note the revolving stage and Rachmaninoff pianist. This is the best clip for sound quality, and the wonderful performance of the song Wang Bu Liao, ("Can never forget") so haunting that it's imprinted in the psyche of all who know the genre.