"Who Won't Yearn For Love?"
I attended another seminar on music history and Hong Kong in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre on March 9, 2017. The theme of the historical talk was about the correlation between music and movies particularly those made in Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s. Sharing lots of provocative thoughts, the distinguished professor mentioned a composer called Yao Min.
On the morning of March 11, 2017, I thought about beginning to compose a song for a cultural event in mainland China in April, but did not have any inspiration. By chance, I listened to a melodic Mandarin oldie called "Who Won't Yearn For Love?" (my translation). I found out the composer was Yao Min and it was the theme song from a 1956 movie of the same name.
I mined the movie from the web (https://youtu.be/qO0ZO8gB8fU) and watched it, as I was also curious about the quality of the script and movie then. The black and white movie musical was a romantic comedy, having all the hall marks of a blockbuster movie. It also reminded me that the leading female actress Chung Ching was one of my childhood idols, although I did not understand any Mandarin then.
In the movie, I was fascinated to see the characters' actions and hear their dialogues and songs, which were manifestations of customs and social behaviour of Hong Kong people then. I was mesmerized with the ideas, music, lyrics, dances and dramas on screen and the collective intellectual achievement behind it, not to mention the social and cultural impact the movie had in South East Asia!