Patrick Lung Kong’s Story Of A Discharged Prisoner in 1967 and The Window in 1968 both looked at the reform of young offenders. But the Hong Kong auteur wasn’t finished there, co-writing this essential story of wayward youth in their wake. Josephine Siao stars as the angry teen Josephine Hsu, hauled into court after a savage dance-hall brawl in the opening scenes and given a chance to clean up her delinquent ways. A judge sentences her to a year in reform school - all good and well for a girl who’d rather be locked up in jail than live at home with her mother and stepfather.
Entry to Purple Peak Girl’s Home is hardly smooth, though. With girls under the eye of Rector To and his manager wife, the inmates are split between two camps. Bullying is rife, fighting abundant and punishments severe, and it’s not long before Josephine and some new friends jump the fence and flee. Stopping only to rob some teddy boys on their way back to the city, Josephine and her escapee mates head off to right past wrongs. There are men they need to confront, and soon life on the run turns violent with robberies, bashings and even murder.
Come the finale, a lengthy monologue sums up the filmmakers’ message: that teen delinquency is not a product of society, that parents hold the bulk of responsibility for youth problems and that positive influence is more effective than punishment in the reform system. Just to drive the last point home is the reform school’s success story Yang Shiao-chiao, plus a look at the institution head’s relationship with his daughter Chia-heui.
While the colours in Teddy Girls’ surviving film print have faded somewhat, compositions and plot devices featuring the girls in the institution and on the mean streets are striking as ever. A standout diversion is a flashback to Josephine’s past, presented as if it’s a television show. As ever with Lung Kong’s work, top-notch actors populate the picture, with the prolific Siao and Sit pulling off some of their most stunning - and demanding - performances of the 1960s.