Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972)
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan
As a boy in the 1980s in the US, my introduction to Shaw Brothers movies came through the TV edits that aired on Saturday afternoons under the moniker Kung Fu Theatre. They were heavily cut and paired with now notoriously bad English dubs. Still, many of us fell in love with the genre and dutifully watched these Hong Kong action films imported into our country. A generation before us saw them uncut at the cinema, where they often played alongside exploitation films and other grindhouse fare.
Chor Yuen’s Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972) appears to have never circulated on American television. I can find no evidence in available broadcast histories or home-video listings that it ever aired in that format. Which for me, makes this title a rarity. I finally saw it for the first time thanks to its inclusion in Arrow Video’s Shawscope: Volume 3 box set, which marks the film’s first High Definition release outside East Asia and with a Mandarin audio track included as an option. After watching it, the absence from my childhood TV rotation makes perfect sense. The issue was not violence (there were plenty of other movies being show, even in their TV edits, that were more violent) but the sexually charged subject matter.
The story follows Ai Nu, a young woman kidnapped and trafficked into the Four Seasons brothel, where she is forced into sex work under the control of the formidable Madam Chun Yi. The film includes brief nudity and several scenes centered on sexual encounters, and it also explores lesbian desire through Chun Yi’s fixation on Ai Nu. As Ai Nu endures abuse and learns to navigate the brothel’s hierarchy, a series of murders draws the attention of a local police chief, setting the stage for a tale of vengeance.
The film fits squarely within the rape and revenge subgenre that flourished in 1970s exploitation cinema. Titles such as Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973) and I Spit on Your Grave (1978) carried similar themes, and the subgenre remains controversial today. Some argue these films are exploitative because they sensationalize trauma, while others view them as empowering since they depict women reclaiming agency through retribution.
In the larger history of cinema, Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan stands out as a bold Shaw Brothers production willing to confront taboo subjects with emotional weight. Its blend of wuxia style, erotic tension, and revenge narrative makes it a memorable entry in Hong Kong film history.
