Whose Baby Is in the Classroom?
Entertaining enough, I guess. But I found this hamstrung by the wild variations in Peter Chen Ho’s character. In the opening scene he’s twitchy and goateed until a doctor tells him that what he really needs to do is get laid. As the movie progresses he’s alternately bumbling, lascivious, negligent, loving, kind, and wildly (illegally) creepy.
Human beings contain multitudes of course. But I think the character’s lack of consistency reflected the movie’s insecurity about what kind of movie it wanted to be. Is it a slapstick comedy where Peter Chen Ho finds a baby that pees on him constantly? Yes. Is it a movie that will casually mention that a student tried to kill herself after her parents died tragically? Also yes!
The tonal shifts eventually settle down and the movie becomes a mostly heartwarming tale of owning up to mistakes and caring for a cute baby. But there’s a lot of excessively wacky stuff on the way to that ending.
At some point around 1968 director Inoue Umetsugu stopped coming to Hong Kong to make films for Shaw Brothers, instead shooting them on location in Japan. Made in 1968 I wouldn’t be surprised if this film was one of the first to use this approach. Though set in Hong Kong, the exteriors are clearly in Japan and the studio is unlike anything offered at Movietown.
This Japanese location is probably why frequent Umetsugu cinematographer Toro Watanabe, who worked with the director on a bunch of Japanese pictures in the 60s, worked on this. This is the first the first of a few Shaw Brothers films he made with Umetsugu, all (I think) shot in Japan. If you’re a fan of 70s Japanese cinematography there’s some lovely work in here. Beautiful color, almost painterly.
Sadly this is where we bid farewell to Peter Chen Ho. While working on this film he diagnosed with the first of a series of illnesses that would kill him in 1970. It was his last completed film in a career that was cut short far too early.
One of Shaw Brothers’ early marquee stars after they lured him away from MP&GI/Cathay in 1959, Peter Chen Ho (along with frequent co-star Pat Ting Hung) were the cornerstones of the studio’s modern comedies and dramas – a vital market in their competition with MP&GI.
Unfortunately, as with Pat Ting Hung, most of these films seem to be lost. Some of the MP&GI stuff is available, though sometimes only rarely shown by film archives. But nearly all of his Shaw Brothers work from 1959 to 1963 appears to be lost. And many of the films we do have access to are from the period when Shaw Brothers was less interested in modern romantic comedies and don’t showcase Peter Chen Ho’s skills.
There are still gems in the movies we do have access to (I like Sons of the Good Earth and Hong Kong Nocturne), but I wish we could see the movies that made him a star.
Ian Whitney
Published: 2025-11-18