An experimental arrangement of austerely executed but intensely hallucinatory episodes that build into a nightmarish fever of isolation and hopelessness.
Centring on the legend of the four ancient Chinese heroines, the film was a novelty for audiences at the time, as the singing performance was in Cantonese and used huangmei operatic rhythms—a popular trend in the 1960s, yet it retained traditional flavours by using operatic luogu percussion in the battle scenes.
There's nothing like a good, opulent, gaudy musical to lift the spirits, but when it's a 1960's Hong Kong musical orchestrated by a Japanese director and composer, it breaks through the ranks as a classic of campy kitsch.
In a Canadian mountain resort, Vixen Palmer resides with her naive pilot husband Tom. While he's away flying in tourists, she sleeps with practically everybody including a husband and his wife, and even her biker brother.
Three identical prints of a single 100 foot fixed-camera take are shown from beginning to end-roll light-flare, with a few feet of blackness preceding/bridging/following the rolls.