The Dream of the Red Chamber is based on the great medieval Chinese novel of the same title, and has also been turned into a much longer TV series. It is a love story about the noble Bao family, whose young son Bao Yu is in love with a childhood friend, Lin, from another wealthy family. But Lin is sickly, so Bao Yu's family wants him to marry his cousin instead, and sets up a wedding where Bao Yu thinks he is being married to Lin, but is in fact being married to his cousin. Much lamenting ensues, performed in the Huangmei musical genre, which is characterized by lightly comical and stylized acting and singing mixed with serious drama.

This story is interesting in terms of gender history because it is almost entirely about women, which is unexpected for a tale of the medieval Asian aristocracy. Even the one major male part is played by a woman in the various film productions.

This version of the tale from 1977 is not quite as good as the previous version from 1962, although the two versions are much alike. The storytelling and the dramatic acting is of higher quality in the '62 version, and the songs are longer and in a more classical style. The two movies seem to follow almost identical scripts, although there are a few scenes that have been changed (the whole episode with the naughty book is cut out of the newer version). In general, the character relationships, esp. that between Lin and Bao Yu, are much more clear and elaborated upon in the '62 version, while much of the storyline in this '77 version seems rushed, even to the extent of being confusing to viewers if they weren't already familiar with the previous version. Repeatedly, various scenes and details of the plot which were shown better in the previous movie are cut short. Here, too, Lin isn't shown to be all that sick (at least not until the end, where it is mainly out of love), while in the '62 version her obvious sickness and frailty greatly contribute to the tragical situations. The drama in the '62 version is significantly more heightened and stylized (but also caricatured) than in this version, probably because the actors and producers were more used to this sort of material. It must be admitted that the dramatic end sequence of this version is very effective, however. Some scenes are modeled very closely according to the '62 version, while the lamentation of Bao Yu after Lin's death is in a more modern, explicit and convincingly anguished style than the older version, which is very moving.

Ultimately, though, I feel that the 1977 version gives the impression of being a largely unnecessary remake of the 1962 movie. This is the last hurrah of this genre; a late-comer and an also-ran which doesn't quite live up to the peak productions of the '60s. But of course it is warranted in that it treats us to the delectable looks of Brigitte Lin, Sylvia Chang, Kara Hui and several other beautiful actresses, and also because, being from 1977, it is perhaps easier to restore for DVD than the '62 version, the available DVD of which is of inferior crispness.

I rate the '62 version 8 - possibly 9 - stars out of 10, while this '77 version gets 7 stars. It certainly has very good sequences, but on the whole it is not as good as the version from 15 years before.