Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-wing Cinema Movement, 1932-1937

312 Pages·2002·17.271 MB·English

by  Laikwan Pang

1932-1937
Laikwan Pang
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham • Boulder· New York· Oxford
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
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Copyright © 2002 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pang, Laikwan. [DATE]
Building a new China in cinema: the Chinese left-wing cinema movement, 1932-1937
/ Laikwan Pang.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-0-7425-0946-7 I.
Motion pictures-China. I. Title.
PNI993.5. C4 P36 2002
791.43'0951'09043-dc21
2002001191
Printed in the United States of America
en.c
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSIINISO Z39.48-1992.
To my parents and my brother

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Front and Back Covers
Front A production scene from Sons and Daughters o/the Times.
Back A public screening of Street Angel. The sign hung in front of the theater
reads "Full House."
List of Plates (appear after chapter 2)
Plate I. Wild Flowers (1932). A typical melodrama of a singing girl (right)
falling in love with the young master (middle).
Plate 2. Spring Silkworms (1933). Silkworm workers bring their products to sell.
Plate 3. Salt Tide (1933). The salt workers are dwarfed by the ships, which
represent the capitalists.
Plate 4. Sweetgrass Beauty (1933). Sweetgrass refers to cigarettes. A film
depicting how the Chinese cigarette industry and its workers were
oppressed by imperialism, as were innocent girls corrupted by the
modern Western entertainment culture. The advertising board in the
background is about cigarettes.
Plate 5. Three Modern Women (1932). One of the three modern-woman
archetypes created in this film: the infatuated fan who lived on romance
alone.
Plate 6. To the Northwest (1934). Mise-en-scene heavily influenced by
Hollywood's musicals.
Plate 7. City Nights (1933). The first film ofFei Mu, also starting a cycle ofleft
wing films equating Shanghai's nighttime with women being trampled
or seduced by the corrupt materialist city.
Plate 8. Women's Outcry (1933). The first film ofShen Xiling, another
women's liberation film depicting the traumatic experience of a country
girl coming to Shanghai.
Plate 9. Twenty-Four Hours in Shanghai (1933). Country people finding
themselves alienated and disillusioned in Shanghai.
ix