Art house: Double Bliss celebrates the spirit of 1971

Hong Kong cinema was facing huge challenges when the Shaw Brothers unspooled for Lunar New Year 1970. The debut of free-to-air TV just over two years earlier, and the temporary collapse of the Cantonese movie market, had made traditional holiday comedies box-office poison. These were major inducements for famed director Chun Kim to frenetically, often entertainingly, attempt to repackage the genre in ultra-modern garb.

The result is a familiar tale of antagonistic fathers who discover their respective progeny are planning to wed. Cantonese superstar Leung Sing-bo was more than familiar with the subject matter. He had battled a Putonghua-speaking immigrant his on-screen daughter had fallen for in the classic movies (1961) and (1962).

keeps the earlier work's antagonism, but eliminates the culture clash. Leung is jovial in the role of a Putonghua-speaking millionaire who combats a postman (Wei Pin-ao) when the former's daughter (Ching Li) is wooed by the latter's son (Chin Feng).

The reason for their enmity is a decades-long feud, the details of which we are mercifully spared.

Rather, the director provides visual punch by relaying potentially expository material in the form of silent black-and-white flashbacks. Offbeat notes like these elevate Gao Lin's pedestrian script and inject some originality.

An early highlight is the opening credit sequence designed by Chin Pei-ling (aka Kamber Huang Chin-ba), which establishes a festive mood.

The cast includes a number of old pros, including Kao Pao-shu and Ouyang Shafei as the feuding prospective-in-laws' respective spouses; and, in what is the narrative's most underdeveloped role, Wu Yen (aka Ng Yin) as a wealthy and wise auntie.