Movies by Li Han-Hsiang

The Golden Lotus: Love and Desire

The Golden Lotus: Love and Desire

A corrupt local official, Xi Men Qing, who lusts after women and money, pursues his brother's young wife, Lee Ping Er. Ping finds Men attractive, and under her drunken husband's nose, she and Men work their way through the illustrations of a pillow book, the "Golden Lotus." Men pursues the same feat with his fourth concubine, Pan Jing Lien, who lives in the compound next to Ping. Jing's jealousy compounds a tale of humiliation, childbirth, death, and depravity. Does karma or enlightenment await anyone?

The Golden Lotus

The Golden Lotus

Golden Lotus is based, in part, on Jin Ping Mei, a famous erotic novel of ancient China. Li Han-Hsiang adapted part of the story into this film, which starts with Hsi Men Ching, a successful merchant, wooing Pan Chin Lien, the beautiful wife of one of the townspeople.

Return of the Phoenix

Return of the Phoenix

Return Of The Phoenix is yet another masterpiece from prolific director Li Han-hsiang. An imperial minister Cheng Pu (Ching Miao) is faced with a quandary. He's getting old and his daughters are still not married. Elder daughter Shueh-yeh (Elizabeth Chuang) is so ugly no one wants her. Younger daughter Shueh-wu (Li Hsiang-chun) is beautiful but Mrs Cheng refuses to let her marry before her elder sister. The drama unfolds when Cheng decides to marry Shueh-wu off.

Empress Wu

Empress Wu

The renowned Li Li Hua plays Wu Ze Tian, the most famous woman in China's four thousand year history.

Return of the Dead

Return of the Dead

Three inmates in an asylum tell their stories. Story 1, a husband and wife discover they should be careful what they wish for. Story 2, a naked female ghost gets revenge from her watery grave. Story 3, a dead prostitute returns as a ghost.

Beauty of Beauties

Beauty of Beauties

Hsi Shih: The Beauty of Beauties was one of the most ambitious films made in the Taiwan film industry in the 1960s. After leaving The Shaw Brothers studio in Hong Kong and moving to Taiwan, filmmaker Li Han-hsiang mounted this historical epic. Told through the story of Xishi (Hsi Shih), one of the 'Four Great Beauties' of Chinese history, the film portrays the war between two Chinese Kingdoms during the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C). After the kingdom of Yue is defeated by the kingdom of Wu, King Goujian of Yue takes pains to prepare f...

Crazy Sex

Crazy Sex

Shaw Brothers superdirector Li Han-Hsiang was particularly masterful in two genres: erotica and classic Chinese tales. He combined these two loves in this two-part examination of lust. The first story features an elderly jeweler's adventures with his unsatisfied wife, a handsome neighbor, and the neighborhood bordello. The second is a more modern tale of sex, lies, and videotape.

The Kingdom and the Beauty

The Kingdom and the Beauty

This is a musical about a young emperor who is lured via stories told to a place called Kiang-Nan by his royal tutor. The empress mother has the tutor go to Kiang-Nan to bring him back.

Diau Charn

Diau Charn

Based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Diau Charn is a sublime retelling of a familiar tale with iconic actress Linda Lin Dai (Lam Doi) in the titular role of Diau Charn, one of the four storied beauties of ancient China.

Sensual Pleasures

Sensual Pleasures

Sensual Pleasures features a collection of three, ghost story, sexual vignettes starring a viscerally sensual trio of hardcore experience with the well endowed Chen Ping, Chinese adult film legend Shirley Yu and the innocent doe-eyed Shaw Yin-yin.

Love Swindler

Love Swindler

Vaunted director Li Han-Hsiang reveals the way of the world in this anthology film of four stories that feature far more swindlers and swindling than lovers or love. There's fake acupuncturists, gullible counterfeiters, a jewelry heist in a VD clinic, and a salesgirl's subtle scam in these short cinematic stories of gulls, dopes, marks, and fools and the cons, cheaters, charlatans, and connivers who trick them. It's four times the fraud as the cheats, gyps, and rip-offs come fast and furious!

The Magic Touch

The Magic Touch

Early Shaw Brothers comedy

The Story of Ti-Ying

The Story of Ti-Ying