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• IVY LING PO: "THE 14 AMAZONS" INTERVIEW

  2009-07-27 7:15PM / 新聞 / Hong Kong Cinema / 會員可以看
  

  I’ve just created a new blog, linked to my website dedicated to “Action Queens” (Do I really need to explain what’s is about?). I already started to put some news a few weeks ago,  but from today, I’m starting to put online the exclusive interviews (old  and new). The first one is with Asian Movie Queen Ivy Ling Po, the most famous Huangmei diao actress from Hong Kong (and mother of director Kenneth Bi for those who still don’t know)...

  
  

   

  Ivy Ling Po as  Mu Kuei-ying in "The 14 Amazons" (1972)

  
  

  Born in China in the early 40’s, Ivy Ling Po 凌波was THE most popular Hong Kong actress and singer of Huangmei diao genre – to make it short, it’s a mix between musical and historical drama inspired by Chinese Opera - in the 60’s, with classics produced by Shaw Brothers studios, from “The Love Eterne 梁山伯與祝英台” (1963 – she received a special award for it at the Golden Horse in Taiwan)  to “The Three Smiles 三笑” (1969).
  

  
  

   

  "The Love Eterne" (1963)
  
  

  In the second half of the 60’s, martial arts were becoming more and more popular in Hong Kong, and Ling Po tried this genre as well in some swordplay movies like “Temple of the Red Lotus 江湖奇俠” (1965) or  “The Sword an the Lute 琴劍恩仇” (1967), where she doesn’t do much (physically speaking).
  

  
  

  
  
  "Temple of the Red Lotus (1965)
  
  
  

  But in 1970, she started the shooting of her most intense movie, “The 14 Amazons 十四女英豪”, one of the biggest and craziest martial art epic ever produced by Shaw Brothers, where she played a warrior princess an tactician from the Northern Sung’s dynasty, Mu Kuei-ying 穆桂英, who led  hundreds of female warriors to avenge her husband (and most of the males of the Yang family) and defended the country against the invaders from the Western Xia.
  

  
  

   

  Ivy Ling Po, on the set of "The 14 Amazons" (1970)

  
  

  Released for the first time in Hong Kong on July 27^th,1972, “The Fourteen Amazons” was screened in its restored version 34 years later, first in Hong Kong on January 5^th, 2006, for a screening hold by Celestial Pictures and Women In Film and Television International (WIFTI) - Hong Kong Chapter. Then, “The 14 Amazons” was ‘officially’ screened in France for the first time (there had been some unofficial screenings in the 80’s in a Chinatown theather in Paris) at the Cannes Film Festival (in the Cannes Classics section)  in May 2006, before its official French theatrical release on June 7^th, 2006.
  

  
  

   

  French 2006 new poster of "The 14 Amazons"
  
  
  

  The following 2006 interview of Asian Movie Queen Ivy Ling Po was previously used (partly) for “The 14 Amazons” French press-kit and an article for the magazine Kumite. Enjoy...

  
  

  
  

   

  ASIAN MOVIE QUEEN: AN INTERVIEW WITH IVY LING PO