UCLA Student Film, Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. A striking documentary shot cinema verite style of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, with contrasting film and audio inside the convention center and the protests outside.
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.
Five criminals are arrested after a bank-robbery. One escapes, and the police officer in charge of transporting them arrests a new person at random to cover up for his negligence.
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.
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.
Forced behind British lines by engine problems, the Red Baron camouflages his plane, swaps uniforms with a dead soldier, and, posing as a Belgian, makes his way to a hospital.
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Have you watched Chicago yet? What did you think about it?