Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan

Eighteen-year-old Ainu is abducted and sold to a brothel. She resists, tries to escape, and is brought back each time. Rather than break her, the madam Chun Yi decides to train her: teaching her both how to handle clients and how to fight. Ainu learns and starts to resemble Chun Yi. But the rage in her has not passed, and one day she decides to take her revenge. Chor Yuen made the film at the Shaw Brothers studio. The narrative turns a martial-arts film into a woman-centred revenge story and sits in an unusual place for the genre. The use of colour, the sets and the composition are among the most discussed examples of the studio aesthetic of the period. Lily Ho plays Ainu and Betty Pei Ti plays Chun Yi. The relationship between the two women is at the film's centre and treated directly for its time. Who it's for: Viewers who like Shaw Brothers films, 1970s Hong Kong cinema, and revenge narratives. Who it's not for: There are scenes of sexual violence and abuse and the camera uses them exploitatively. The ending offers no deliverance either.