Golden Gate Girls

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Golden Gate Girls
File:GGG-PosterEN-Small.jpg
Poster of the 2013 documentary
金門銀光夢
Directed by S. Louisa Wei
Produced by Law Kar, S. Louisa Wei
Written by S. Louisa Wei
Starring Siu Yin Fei, Margareta Ma, Chin-lee Wu, Danny Li, Sally Ng, Law Kar, Judith Mayne, Graham Hodges, Todd McCarthy, Kenneth Kwong, Tam Yong-wai, Genevieve Lau
Narrated by Stephanie Han
Music by Robert Ellis-Geiger, Trần Mạnh Tuấn
Cinematography Melanie Wong, Jeff Hu, Max Willis
Edited by S. Louisa Wei
Production
company
Blue Queen Cultural Communication Ltd.
Distributed by Women Make Movies
Release dates
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  • April 1, 2013 (2013-04-01) (Hong Kong International Film Festival)
  • September 24, 2014 (2014-09-24)
Running time
 90 minutes
Country Hong Kong
Language English and Cantonese

Golden Gate Girls is a 2013 documentary film focusing on the life and works of Esther Eng (1914-1970), once honored as the first woman director of Southern China.[1] She crossed boundaries of both gender and culture by making Cantonese language films for Chinese audiences during and after WWII. She was in fact the only woman directing feature length films in America after Dorothy Arzner’s retirement in 1943 and before Ida Lupino began directing in 1949.[2] After her film career, she pioneered in establishing fine dining Chinese Restaurants in New York City.[3] She left her mark in both the Chinese and English press enabling director S. Louisa Wei to recover some of her lost stories. Clips from her two extant films, stills from her eight other motion pictures, photos from her six albums, newsreels of San Francisco as she saw them, as well as hundreds of archival images are collected to present her life and work in the most stunning visuals.

To pay tribute to Esther Eng, this documentary borrows the title of Eng's 1941 picture Golden Gate Girl and the making of the film was also included in the documentary.

Production

The film is produced by Blue Queen Cultural Communication Ltd.,[4] a Hong Kong based production company that also produced feature documentary Storm under the Sun that was premiered in its 2007 version at IDFA[5] and in its final version at the 33rd Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2009.[6]

Writer

Writer/Director S. Louisa Wei assisted Hong Kong director Susie Au in the production of Ming Ming, co-writing the script and helping the director obtain funds for the project.[7] In the same year, she wrote the script for Gun of Mercy and was credited as the primary scriptwriter in the film’s release.[8] The theme of the film was to be a positive portrayal of a Chinese policeman, but Wei’s script lent the story a complex narrative structure and a series of unexpected twists. In 2009, she wrote the script of Storm under the Sun, a feature documentary on the purge of writers by Mao. In 2010, she wrote the script for Broken Wings: An Incomplete Genius with took mid-century Chinese writer Lu Ling as its subject. In 2012, she completed the script for Golden Gate Girls (a.k.a. Golden Gate, Silver Light) in both English and Chinese.

Co-Producer

Co-Producer Law Kar is a veteran filmmaker and critic in Hong Kong who has participated in numerous film, TV and video productions in the roles of producer, writer, artistic director, and script supervisor. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was regarded as a cultural hero in Hong Kong for pushing forth Hong Kong’s First and Second New Wave cinemas through his writing and also urging intellectuals to reflect upon Hong Kong’s history and cultural identity. In recent years, he has produced and co-produced many documentary works, including the feature documentary Lai Man-wai: Father of Hong Kong Cinema (2001).[9] He acted as the script consultant for Hollywood Chinese,[10] which was first broadcast on National Geographic Channel Asian and then in Canada and France in 2006. For Golden Gate Girls, he also acts as script consultant for the project and appears in the film.

Review

The film's earlier version, titled Golden Gate Silver Light, was first shown in the 37th Hong Kong International Film Festival.[11] The film was reviewed by Elizabeth Kerr of The Hollywood Reporter, who writes: "Documentary filmmaker S. Louisa Wei sheds some much-needed light on a hidden piece of Hollywood, Hong Kong, women’s and Asian-American film history. One of [the film’s] strengths is its seamless ability to weave history, Sino-U.S. relations and social standards together to allow for inference and context." [12] The film seemed to have evoked interests in Hollywood producers to make a bio-pic on the film's main subject, Esther Eng.[13]

The final version of the film, as director S. Louisa Wei reveals to China Daily's Chitralekha Basu, is the ninth and re-titled Golden Gate Girls in English.[14] It was invited to over a dozen international film festivals including CAAM in San Francisco,[15] San Diego Asian Film Festival,[16] and most recently Shanghai International Film Festival.[17] The film was the closing film for Women Make Wave Film Festival in Taiwan in 2013,[18] the opening film for the 2nd Chinese Women's Film Festival in 2014, and the winner of Intra-Cultural Spotlight Award at Washington DC Chinese Film Festival in 2014 [19]

The film has received mainly positive reviews from both English and Chinese press. Kevin M. Thomas of San Francisco's The Examiner praised Golden Gate Girls as "more than a loving tribute to [Esther] Eng, set to the most amazing jazz music." He likes the fact that director "Wei also pays tribute to other pioneering and lesbian filmmakers such as Dorothy Arzner, who paved the road for many of our more recent female directors – gay or straight." He also notes that the "90 minute film also is a beautiful refection of early San Francisco, where Eng made a lot of her movies."[20]

Distribution

Women Make Movies is distributing Golden Gate Girls in North America.[21] In Taiwan, the film is distributed by Women's Film Association.[22] Edko Films in Hong Kong has the TV distribution rights for the film in Hong Kong and Macau and already aired the film in its MOVIE MOVIE channel.[23] In Mainland China, the film is distributed by Companion Company.[24]

Music

Many audience members noticed the music pieces of the film. Besides the amazing jazz and big band cues played in the 1930s style, the original composition by Robert Ellis-Geiger, who created original scores for notable Hong Kong directors like Johnny To and Patrick Tam. Vietnam's top saxophone player Trần Mạnh Tuấn also contribute to the quality and dynamic of the jazz band recording for this film.

References

  1. ↑ [Mok, Rachel. “Shine a Light on a Chinese-American Female Film Pioneer” in South Morning China Post, March 31, 2013.]
  2. ↑ [Wei, S. Louisa. "Esther Eng." In Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta, eds. Women Film Pioneers Project. Center for Digital Research and Scholarship. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2013. Web. August 15, 2014. <https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/esther-eng-2/>]
  3. ↑ [Wei, S. Louisa. “‘She Wears Slacks’: Pioneer Women Directors Esther Eng and Dorothy Arzner.” Chapter II in Winnie Fu and Earnest C. Chan eds. Transcending Space and Time: Early Cinematic Experience of Hong Kong, Book III, Re-discovering Pioneering Females in Early Chinese Cinema & Grandview’s Cross-border Productions. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Film Archive, 2014, 143.]
  4. ↑ Blue Queen Cultural Communication Ltd.
  5. ↑ Storm under the Sun
  6. ↑ Storm under the Sun
  7. ↑ Ming Ming
  8. ↑ Gun of Mercy reviewed by Derek Elley
  9. ↑ Shelly Kraicer's review of Lai Man-wai: Father of Hong Kong Cinema
  10. ↑ Hollywood Chinese
  11. ↑ Golden Gate Silver Light
  12. ↑ Golden Gate Silver Light: Hong Kong Review The Hollywood Reporter
  13. ↑ 'Golden Gate Silver Light' Reveals Life of First Chinese-American Female Director
  14. ↑ Gay Forever
  15. ↑ CAAM Fest 2014
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ 19th Shanghai International Film Festival
  18. ↑ Taiwan Women Make Wave Film Festival
  19. ↑ DCCFF Opening Night Screening 'Golden Gate Girls'.
  20. ↑ [Thomas, Kevin M. “CAAM Festival Offers Diversity, History and Good Storytelling” in The Examiner (San Francisco), March 12, 2014. ]
  21. ↑ Women Make Movies
  22. ↑ Taiwan Women's Film Association
  23. ↑ Golden Gate Girls on MOVIE MOVIE
  24. ↑ Companion Interview

External links

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