Back Door

Butterfly Wu is an infertile older woman who would like to adopt a neglected little girl (Wong Oi-Ming) who plays outside the stoop of the back entrance of the building opposite her building's back entrance. The girl's stepmother (Weng Mu-Lan) regards her with disdain and treats her with indifference, and her father (Cheng Miu) is a low-level Lothario. The older woman and her novelist husband Wang Yin -- who memorably played the father in the MP & GI Lucilla Yu Ming vehicles Her Tender Heart (1959) and Father Takes a Bride (1963), as well as in Education of Love (1961) and A Story of Three Loves (1964) -- through the intercession of the maids from the two households (Kao Tsiang and Ma Hsiao-Nung) and the blessing of father Cheng Miu, are able to adopt the little girl. Up until this point, the film has been heartwarming, but too pat and predictable. Making matters worse is the anachronistic soundtrack created to make up for the missing audio on the master film.