"The Love Affair of Rainbow" is a dreamy movie with my dream couple.  Brigitte&Charlie, when they get together, they just light up the screen and take my breath away.  This is one of my favorite romance movies starring this pair, and I have been so in love with it ever since I first watched it in junior high.

The movie was based on one of Qiong Yao's short novel called "Five Roses" included in "Shui Ling". Since the original novel was so short, the movie did many changes and added many scenes and dialogues to make it a drama lengthy. I must say I am quite pleased by those changes, such as the first encounter scene. In the novel, Jing-chen met Xiao-han in her garden with two other fellows. However, in the movie, We saw Charlie was tracing the petals in the river and found that Brigitte sitting on the big rock and threw the petals in the river. Look at the scene carefully, you would see Brigitte was sitting across a rainbow (see the the last picture in this page), which is in accordance to the title. In fact, the name of the heroine has been changed from "Xiao-han" (morning coldness) to "Xiao-hong" (morning rainbow) in order to match the new title "The Love Affair of Rainbow". The first encounter scene was beautifully pictured with a beautiful flowing music. Brigitte's long-hair, white skirt, simple and pure fairy-like image was one of the typical girl from Qiong Yao's world. I just love her every move, so I still feel enjoyable even when she spoke the supposed to be "out of worldly pure" but rather silly and dumb line.  (That famous line of "Yond the mountain, there is a very good land, with very good water, and it will turn to the best garden." which she repeated three times through the movie.)

It is not the first time for Charlie to play a rich guy who has found his true love with a different class girl and prefer truthful, simple and pure life. As usual, Charlie was smart, funny and soulful as the principal. You've got to love him when he hid himself behind the big rock and threw his hat as he was discovered by Brigitte in their first encounter scene. When he was repeating Brigitte's name "morning rainbow", that was the most beautiful and soulful voice I've ever heard (although the voice was most likely dubbed).  His facial expression was very touching, when he showed his admiration for Brigitte's simple and pure life and when he told Brigitte he wanted to marry her so that no one would say he play on her.  How can you forget his eyes full of fire when he was staring at Brigitte on stage in the climax scene.

Brigitte is so beautiful and shining like an angel, and Charlie is equally handsome and radiant like a prince.  They are just as gorgeous as it can get.

The beginning and ending scene were perfect for this dreamy fairy tale. The movie is romantic not only in its format but also in this theme, although you may not agree on its value issue.

Some highlights and memorable scenes

• The two close-up scenes of Brigitte when she and Charlie shared a look after they met were breathtakingly beautiful (see the 1st pic above).

• There is a long series of kissing scenes (shown in Brigitte&Charlie section) between Brigitte and Charlie after they got married. Every scene was taken with the surrounding of flowers and using soft focus lens. This must have to do with the fact that the director of this movie Gao Shanlan was originally an art director. Brigitte once mentioned that Charlie has a very sexy lip that born to make the kissing scene.

• The usual supporting actor Ma Yonglin played A Jiang (John) in the movie, which I think it is one of the most likable characters he's played.  The actor who played Brigitte's dad is also very likable, he generated a few hilarious scene with Brigitte&Charlie ( the proposal scene and the celebration for Charlie's first published articles on the newspaper, etc).

I personally think that Brigitte looked much better when she was the natural country girl Zhang Xiao-hong than when she became the superstar Ding Jie-fei. Though I won't believe there could ever be a country girl looks as beautiful as Brigitte.

I just like everything with Brigitte and Charlie together. I am totally mesmerized by the charms of this pair.

Synopsis

It is a fairy-tale about how a rich guy finds his Cinderella in a mountain and loses her in a world of false and vanity and finally finds her again. Charlie is the guy born in a rich family in the large city, who is tired of the vanity of the modern world and has no interest in inheriting his dad's fashion company. His dream is to be a writer and write his own books. One day when he is searching for his inspiration in a mountain, he meets Brigitte, a simple pure country girl with limited education but natural innocence and truthfulness. In the movie, Charlie calls Brigitte a lotus-eater who is born to sit besides the creek and throw the pedals in the river. It's almost a love at first sight. However, the love is disapproved by Charlie's rich family on their class standards. The couple get married anyway, and live in Brigitte's cozy country home. They've lived a peaceful life until Charlie's sister's visit. The sister has a great plan to make Brigitte a graceful actress (model, superstar) to earn their father's approval. While Brigitte is succeeding in becoming a superstar, she loses Charlie's heart. For ever? Of course not, Brigitte realizes what is more important to her and comes back to her real self and reunites with Charlie. A happy ending for a fairy tale, fairly enough.

Trivia

It would be interesting to compare this movie to "Love Rings a Bell" ("Feng Ling, Feng Ling", or "Wind Bell, Wind Bell").

• Both movies were based on a short novel in QY's "Shui Ling", this movie was based on "Five Roses" and the latter was based on "Feng Ling" (Wind Bell).
• Both movies were made in 1977 and released about the same time in theaters.
• This movie was starring Brigitte&Charlie, and "Love Rings a Bell" was starring Joan Lin&Chin Han.  Just a perfect comparison between two Lins, two Chins.
• After "Love Rings a Bell", QY never sold her novels to any other movie producing companies.  All the rest of her movies were made by her own Superstar Inc.
• I have to say, I much more prefer this movie to "Love Rings a Bell" since the latter one was changed too much from the original novel and I am sorry to say they were not favorable changes.  Of course, that is only my personal opinion.  I can totally understand why QY would never sell her novels to other movie makers (besides the money concern), since they often made those movies far from the spirit of her novels.

Novel:    Qiong Yao

Director: Gao Shanlan
Starring: Brigitte Lin  Charlie Chin
Singer:   Feng Feifei
Made:    Superstar
Year:     1977