Arrow Video
Blu-ray Release: November 26, 2024 (as part of Shawscope: Volume 3)
Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color
Audio: Mandarin and English LPCM 2.0 Mono
Subtitles: English, English SDH
Run Time: 90:35
Director: Chor Yuen
Aristocratic maiden Ai Nu (Lily Ho) is abducted and sold to the Four Seasons Brothel. Quickly becoming the brothel’s most desirable courtesan, she finds herself caught up in a web of sex, murder, and intrigue involving an official in the imperial court and a neurotic courtesan who harbors an unrequited love. (From Arrow’s official synopsis)
Writer/director Chor Yuen is very well-represented in this latest Shawscope collection, especially for his action-packed entries in the ‘70s wuxia revival films, many of which were based on stories by author Gu Long (aka: Ku Lung) and starring Ti Lung. Despite the enduring popularity of those films across the world, within Hong Kong, his most influential work was also his first bonafide hit – Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972). Likely inspired by early Japanese ‘pink’ films (particularly Seijun Suzuki's Gate of Flesh [1964]) and drawing from sensationalistic literature from China’s past, Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan was an erotic costume drama that helped usher in a new era of sexually-charged Hong Kong and Taiwanese motion pictures.
While not really a martial arts movie until its final act, Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan is still often associated with the female warrior/knight-errant trend that was kicked off by King Hu’s omnipresent Come Drink with Me (1966). The comparison is especially compelling because most of those films were so entirely chaste, often forgoing not only sex, but romance in general (aside from Come Drink with Me). Yuen’s film is certainly exploitative and sold on its salacious content, but it also gives these previously modest female heroes and antiheroes permission to be vamps and sexpots. Multiple sources even credit it as the first mainstream Hong Kong film to depict a lesbian relationship, though I wouldn’t exactly call it a healthy one.
Beyond its opulence and libidinous imagery, Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan is a revenge movie and fits well alongside Angela Mao’s kung fu revenge pictures, Lady Whirlwind (aka: Lady Hurricane and Deep Thrust, 1972) and Hapkido (aka: Lady Kung Fu, both directed by Huang Feng, 1972), and their Japanese equivalents, Toshiya Fujita’s Lady Snowblood (1973) and Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance (1974), both starring Meiko Kaji. The fact that these movies were all released within a couple of years of each other and on the onset of the Englsh language rape/revenge exploitation cycle really speaks to the international angst surrounding post-’60s gender politics.
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan matches the violent spectacle of the notorious rape/revenge films it resembles, but usually in a manner befitting other wuxia and kung fu pictures. The bloodiest mayhem is reserved for the climax, when Ai Nu and Chun Yi, the brothel’s madam (portrayed by Betty Pei Ti), team up to slaughter the men in charge of the human trafficking ring (before turning on each other). It is every bit gore-soaked as most of Chang Cheh’s masochistic masterpieces. The sexual violence, on the other hand, is almost entirely obscured by cuts – a stark contrast to Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left or Shunya Itō’s Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion, both of which were also released in 1972. Similarly, the torture and sex scenes are too soaked in melodrama and goofy humor to be offensive, even by ‘70s standards.
With the sexploitation, rape/revenge, and warrior woman genres still going strong a decade later, Yuen remade Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan as Lust for Love of a Chinese Courtesan in 1984.
Bibliography:
Mondo Macabro: Weird & Wonderful Cinema Around the World by Pete Tombs (St. Martin's Griffin, 1998)
Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition by Stephen Teo (Edinburgh University Press, 2009)
Video
I can’t find any evidence of Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan having ever made it to US VHS or DVD, though it was importable from Asia and Europe (for some reason, most of the DVDs were PAL-to-NTSC conversions) and made available on some streaming sites in HD, alongside other Shaw Bros. classics. Intercontinental Video also issued a HK Blu-ray of Celestial Films’ original HD transfer in 2017. Like most films in the third Shawscope set, this one has been restored in 2K from the original negative exclusively by Arrow. Chu Chia-Hsin’s cinematography is consistently lush and eclectic, which means that detail levels, vibrancy, and grain texture fluctuates. Usually, the softest shots are clearly meant to look that way, distortion relates to anamorphic lens effects, and there aren’t major signs of the DNR Celestial typically uses.
Audio
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan is presented with Mandarin and English dub options, both in uncompressed LPCM mono sound. The Mandarin track features sharper dialogue and sharper incidental effects, but the English dub isn’t muddled and its performances are slightly above average. Chou Fu-Liang is credited with the score – and I’m sure he wrote some of it – but, alongside the traditional period fare and dramatic stings, there are a couple of cues from Pink Floyd’s Zabriskie Point (1970) soundtrack. I’m sure that the filmmakers did so with permission.
Extras
Commentary with Tony Rayns – The critic and historian (who is quoted on the subject of this film in both of the books I’ve credited in my bibliography) offers, in his own words, ‘context’ for the film, exploring its cultural roots and meanings, the careers of the cast & crew, its story structure, its technical form, similar films, and his own experience reviewing Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan on its initial UK release (hence the quotes).
Commentary with Samm Deighan – In one of several Shawscope: Vol. 3 commentaries, the co-editor of the recently published Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema from the Arthouse to the Grindhouse, 1960 - 1990 (PM Press, 2024) overlaps with Rayns’ a bit, especially in terms of exploring cast & crew filmographies, but also focuses more on Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan’s place in the Shaw Bros. canon, its influence on the studio’s shift to exploitation films (I hadn’t considered its obvious similarities to the Women in Prison fad), its queer and feminist themes, and Chor Yuen’s creative use of contrasting genre elements.
Alternate English export credits (2:00, HD)
Mandarin and English Hong Kong trailers
Additionally, Disc 9 of Shawscope: Vol. 3 includes:
Confessions of a Stunt Woman (4:51, HD) – A brief 2004 interview with the stuntwoman and actress Sharon Yeung from the Frédéric Ambroisine archives.
Theories on Intimate Confessions (18:01, HD) – A 2003 roundtable appreciation of the film featuring academic Stephen Sze Man-hung, musician Kwan King-chung, and The Iceman Cometh (1989) and Naked Killer (1992) director Clarence Fok (who was filmed separately).
The images on this page are taken from the BDs and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.
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