Love ‘A Better Tomorrow’? The Hong Kong director and film that inspired it

Patrick Lung Kong, also known as Long Gang, is an anomaly among Hong Kong filmmakers. Working at a time when martial arts films ruled the local box office, Lung made socially conscious contemporary dramas that focused on Hong Kong issues and were highly didactic. Lung, who died in 2014, believed that society’s ills, rather than an individual’s failings, turned citizens to crime, and he was not afraid to express this explicitly in his work. But Lung also realised that audiences did not like to sit and watch lectures, so his best-known films are not standard social dramas – the messages are often framed in a genre format featuring criminals, prisoners and call girls. Although Shaw Brothers wanted to sign him, Lung remained relatively independent throughout his career, relishing his creative freedom. He famously employed a “three to one” approach to filmmaking, aiming to direct three commercially viable films to cover the cost of making one of his personal, socially conscious dramas. Below, we look at two of Lung’s best-known films. The Story of a Discharged Prisoner (1967) Lung’s second film, which followed his well-received debut Prince of Broadcasters, is widely considered his best work. The crime story merges social realism, action, melodrama and unabashed didacticism into a compelling and unique drama. The Story of a Discharged Prisoner, which was loosely modelled on American director Ralph Nelson’s Once a Thief (1965), served as the basis for John Woo Yu-sum’s trendsetting 1986 hit A Better Tomorrow, with which it shares its Chinese title, True Colours of a Hero. “As much a damning critique as a call for hope, The Story of a Discharged Prisoner is filmmaking at its sharpest and most masterful,” Clarence Tsui wrote in the South China Morning Post in 2011. Lung’s script is neat in the manner of a French policier. Lee (Patrick Tse Yin) is released from prison after a 10-year stint for safecracking and intends to go straight. But triad boss One-Eyed Jack (veteran villain Sek Kin) knows of his skills and uses violent tactics to get him to join his gang. The police do not help, as they are pressuring Lee to join the gang as an informer. A ray of hope comes from social worker Miss Mok (Patsy Kar Ling), who truly believes that prisoners can change their ways and become honest members of society. This part of the story is Lung’s main focus. “He tries to show the tragedy of someone who chooses to remain on the right side of the law, but is tyrannised on the one hand by society (personified by the police detective played by Lung) and the triads on the other,” wrote critic Law Kar. Lung began his career as an actor at Shaw Brothers in the 1950s and learned directing by assisting veteran filmmakers Chow Sze-luk and Chun Kim. An avid watcher of American and European movies, he aimed to bring modern filmmaking techniques to Chinese films, especially Cantonese movies, which were in decline during the late 1960s thanks to Shaw Brothers’ high-quality Mandarin-language productions. Lung’s use of montage – the editing together of shots to tell the story in a cinematic way – was more advanced than that of his contemporaries, and that gives The Story of a Discharged Prisoner a modern look. The opening scene, in which a heist goes wrong, could pass as a segment of a French film of the time. A scene in which a beggar in a wheelchair is pushed to his death down a flight of steps is a direct reference to the classic pram scene, a groundbreaking montage sequence, in Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925). Lung anticipated the Hong Kong New Wave by shooting on location at a time when the local fashion was to shoot on sound stages. The Story of a Discharged Prisoner was partially shot in a squatter village, along with many other recognisable locales, and documented Hong Kong in the late 1960s. Such realism allowed a working-class audience to relate to the plight of the characters. “The film gains its strength not from its social critique, but from its sympathetic portrayal of the poor,” Law noted. Teddy Girls (1969) Lung’s films are often “on the nose” in terms of their social commentary – he not only gets his characters to voice his own position on social issues, but he often instructs the audience on what to think. Teddy Girls, which focuses on juvenile delinquents in a reform school, is a perfect example of this. The kindly head of the reform school constantly explains to all around him – and therefore the audience – how broken homes and society’s evils have led to his prisoners turning to nihilistic behaviour and violent crime. Increasing their self-esteem and training them in moral behaviour will result in model citizens, he says. On-the-nose scripts are not considered acceptable in filmmaking today, but Lung was even criticised for this approach back in the 1960s and 70s. Interestingly, he not only admitted that his films were instructional, but he also said that he consciously aimed to make them that way. “I mean my films to be didactic,” Lung said in a 1974 interview with film researcher Law Wai-ming. “I’m not saying that I have something to teach everyone, but 60 per cent of my audience have something to learn, as their education level is low. “Cinema is an effective means of communication. Surely, it is OK to moralise as long as you don’t bore while doing it.” Lung went on to say that, although he expressed himself cinematically, he also spelled out the film’s message explicitly in dialogue, to make sure that the entire audience understood it. Teddy Girls features Josephine Siao Fong-fong, already a big star at the time thanks to her many appearances in wuxia films, as Tsui Yuk-ching, a young girl who is sent to reform school for bashing two men with a bottle after they sexually assaulted her friend in a nightclub. Tsui’s mother has a sleazy new lover (played by Lung) who swindles her out of her business. When her mother commits suicide, Tsui and her friends in the reform school escape with the intention of exacting violent revenge on him. Although the film offers ample opportunity to explain the effects of bad parenting on children, Lung never forgets that he has to entertain his audience. So there is action in the form of mass fights – which are surprisingly badly choreographed – and even elements taken from American exploitation films, such as a prison shower scene. Teddy Girls also features some advanced cinematic scenography, notably Tsui wildly freeing some caged pigeons to express her frustration with her mother. In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars and revisit some of the lesser-known aspects of the beloved industry. Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook.

Love ‘A Better Tomorrow’? The Hong Kong director and film that inspired it

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Patrick Lung Kong was known for films that imparted moral lessons. We look at ‘The Story of a Discharged Prisoner’ and ‘Teddy Girls’

The Story of a Discharged Prisoner (1967)

Patrick Lung Kong was known for films that imparted moral lessons. We look at ‘The Story of a Discharged Prisoner’ and ‘Teddy Girls’