The Girlie Bar

Gee, and the packaging was so attractive! A Shaw Brothers release so I knew there would be fighting, and there was. From the title I assumed there would be some sex and there was but I was not prepared for a turgid melodrama that moves so slowly. One interesting feature was that to cut costs the brothel set relied a lot on the way it was shot and the colours and there were times when this reminded me of a Bava! Apologies for that but it was just that rather effective use of primary colours. I guess the other vaguely interesting thing of note was that the film includes Lin Chen-chi who had just completed ‘Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold’. The film thinks it has something serious to say about the plight of women in Chinese society but I reckon rather it wanted to have it’s cake and eat it and managed to fail in both respects.