The early part of Brigitte Lin’s legendary acting career was spent in Taiwan and most of the latter part in Hong Kong. Love Massacre was a transitional work bridging the two. In this film, art director William Chang had Lin’s hair cut short to complement a westernised wardrobe. Dressed in white with lips in red, her image contrasted with the innocent maiden roles she used to play in Taiwan’s romantic melodramas. Director Patrick Tam also had her replace dialogue- and facial expression-centred acting with an approach focused on gestures and speed, with refreshing results.

Regardless, for an entire generation, Lin’s image as the romantic golden girl (especially in filmic adaptations of novels by Chiung Yao) is the stuff of collective memory, the most classic example being Outside the Window which marked her silver screen debut at 19. Brigitte Lin gazing out the window, chin propped up with palms, paints the perfect portrait of a girl daydreaming about love. She plays Chiang Yen-Yun, a high school student in love with her literature teacher Kang Nan. The teacher-student affair is shunned by society and eventually unravelled by Chiang’s mother. Director Sung Tsun-Shou tells the story with subtle and moving mise-en-scene. At the end, Chiang returns to her alma mater and it’s where the classic scene of the ex-lovers’ almost-but-not-quite reunion takes place.

Sung Tsun-Shou (1930–2008) was born in Jiangsu and moved to Hong Kong at the age of nineteen. He entered the film industry in 1955 as a screenwriter and joined Shaw Brothers in 1956. In 1963, he went to Taiwan and, together with Li Han-hsiang, co-founded Grand Motion Pictures Company. His directorial debut, A Perturbed Girl was released in 1966, and At Dawn (1968) was widely acclaimed. In 1971, he and Yu Teng-Heung, among others, co-founded the Eighties Film Company.  And with Outside the Window (1973) he discovered Brigitte Lin, and his subsequent Chelsia My Love (1976) marked the screen debut of the singer Chelsia Chan. His other notable works include You Can't Tell Him (1971), The Story of Mother (1973) and Ghost of the Mirror (1974). In 2001, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 38th Golden Horse Awards.

Yu Teng-Heung (b. 1934, Jiangsu) moved to Hong Kong in 1950. He studied at the Chinese Film School on Nathan Road, where instructors included Li Han-hsiang and King Hu. He later apprenticed at a troupe founded by Yao Ke. In 1959, he entered the film industry, first working as a continuity supervisor and then as an assistant director. In the 1970s, he and director Sung Tsun-Shou co-founded the Eighties Film Company and jointly directed its first film, Outside the Window. In 1976, he co-wrote the screenplay for Chelsia My Love with Sung Tsun-Shou. His final film as a director was the 1979 production Mad Mad Kung Fu, co-directed with Ho Meng-hua.