He's a Woman, She's a Man (金枝玉叶)

He's a Woman, She's a Man (金枝玉叶) is a 1994 Hong Kong romantic comedy directed by Peter Chan Ho-sun, in which a young woman disguises herself as a man to enter a male-only singing audition and becomes entangled in a love triangle with the record producer and pop star she idolizes.¹ Produced by the United Filmmakers Organization (UFO) and starring Leslie Cheung, Anita Yuen, Carina Lau, Eric Tsang, and Jordan Chan, it was released in Hong Kong on 23 July 1994 and earned HK$29,131,628 at the local box office, ranking eighth among 1994 Hong Kong films.^{2 • 3} At the 14th Hong Kong Film Awards it won Best Actress for Anita Yuen and Best Original Song for the theme "Chase" (追), performed by Leslie Cheung.⁴

Production and context

UFO and Peter Chan. In 1991 Peter Chan co-founded the production company UFO (電影人製作有限公司) with Eric Tsang and Chung Chun, gathering filmmakers including Cheung Chi-leung, Lee Chi-ngai, and James Yuen to make urban comedies distinct from the period costume films then dominating the market.¹² In a span of about four years Chan directed six films there, among them He's a Woman, She's a Man (1994) and Comrades, Almost a Love Story (1996).¹² Time Out placed the film within UFO's run of comedy-dramas about yuppie problems in the competitive Hong Kong market.¹³

Gender and sexuality. The Hong Kong Film Archive describes the film as daringly touching on homosexuality and gender confusion, topics that remained taboo in 1990s Hong Kong.¹ Lisa Odham Stokes, author of a Hong Kong University Press monograph devoted to the film, characterizes it as a gender-stretching comedy that confronts social stereotypes of masculine females, male anxieties about homosexuality, and the limits of male femininity.¹⁴ In a 2019 survey of cross-dressing in Chinese cinema, Anna Wing Bo Tso of The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong included the film among the key 1980s and 1990s Hong Kong works for studying both "male femaling" and "female maling," arguing that Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity helps explain such representations but must be read against Chinese cultural specificities such as the male/female impersonation tradition of traditional theater.¹⁵ A Letterboxd reviewer, Jessica Yeung, notes that the film adapts the gender-reversal plot of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night into a contemporary Hong Kong setting.¹⁶

Music

Leslie Cheung had retired from the music scene when the film was made, so his on-screen singing, including the ballad theme "Chase" (追), gave fans a rare chance to hear him perform; the song remains one of his most popular.¹ "Chase," with music by Dick Lee and lyrics by Xi Lin, won Best Original Song at the 14th Hong Kong Film Awards and was nominated in the same category at the 31st Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan.^{4 • 7} The film's score is credited to Clarence Hui and Chiu Jun-king.⁴

Reception and legacy

The film ran in Hong Kong cinemas for nearly two months, from 23 July to 19 September 1994, and its HK$29,131,628 gross placed it eighth for the year, behind titles such as God of Gamblers II and Drunken Master II.³ At the Hong Kong Film Awards it received eleven nominations and two wins, with Anita Yuen taking Best Actress; the lovehkfilm review counts nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Peter Chan), Best Actor (Leslie Cheung), Best Supporting Actor and Best New Artist (Jordan Chan), Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Film Score.⁴ Yuen's win was her second consecutive Best Actress award at the ceremony.⁴

A direct sequel, Who's the Woman, Who's the Man (金枝玉葉2), followed in 1996, produced by Golden Harvest and again directed by Peter Chan. It continues the story of Sam and Wing, now openly in love, whose world is upended when the megastar Fong Yim-mui, played by Anita Mui in a role modeled on her own reversed name, enters their lives.⁶ The original film has remained in circulation: it appears on Netflix's catalog as a Hong Kong romantic comedy⁸ and streams in Japan and South Korea on U-NEXT and wavve, though as of recent checks it was not available on any United States streaming service.⁵

References

1. He's a Woman, She's a Man, Hong Kong Film Archive
2. He's a Woman, She's a Man (1994), IMDb
3. 1994 Hong Kong film box office table, Sina Blog
4. He's a Woman, She's a Man (金枝玉葉) (1994), lovehkfilm.com
5. He's a Woman, She's a Man streaming, JustWatch
6. Who's the Woman, Who's the Man, Hong Kong Film Archive
7. 金枝玉葉 He's a Woman, She's a Man, LiTV
8. He's a Woman, She's a Man, Netflix
9. 君さえいれば 金枝玉葉, 映画.com
10. 金枝玉葉, Hong Kong Film Archive (Chinese)
11. 金枝玉叶 (1994年陈可辛执导的喜剧电影), Baidu Baike
12. 展影120期：星級影談——陳可辛, Hong Kong Film Archive
13. He's a Woman, She's a Man review, Time Out
14. Peter Ho-Sun Chan's He's a Woman, She's a Man, Lisa Odham Stokes, Hong Kong University Press
15. Tso, Anna Wing Bo (2019). Representations of the Queer: The Screening of Cross-dressing in Chinese. New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 21(2)
16. Review by Jessica Yeung, Letterboxd

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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