Comments on: Shanghai film clips

By: Nature Photography

Nature Photography — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:25:12 +0000

Nice! center stage is also one of my favorite. thanks Edeb for sharing it.
God Bless!

By: duriandave

duriandave — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:54:20 +0000

Cool! Center Stage is one of my favorite Chinese films and was also my introduction to the classic Shanghai movies of the 1930s.

Looking forward to seeing it again!

By: edeb

edeb — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 07:05:59 +0000

Thanks for the good suggestions, duriandave, and Nancy, for your comments and interesting post on your own blog. We will show a biopic/documentary about Ruan Lingyu's life directed by Stanley Kwan called "Center Stage" with Maggie Cheung playing Ms. Ruan on one of the first Sundays during the Shanghai exhibition. Details to come soon. You can see a trailer on YouTube

By: Nancy

Nancy — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:29:35 +0000

I found The Goddess on uTube and posted a link via my blog:
http://cheznamastenancy.blogspot.com/2010/01/upcoming-at-asian-shanghai-opening-feb.html

It’s really a masterpiece and it’s a shame that it’s not more widely know in the West. But, when I was reading about Shanghai, I was overwhelmed by the tragedy of China during the 1920′s and 1930′s. We are lucky to have anything from that time, given the brutalities of war, occupation and famine.

By: duriandave

duriandave — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:45:31 +0000

Edeb, I've been wanting to see Crows and Sparrows for a long time now. Still waiting for a subtitled release... sigh... Nancy, the Ruan Lingyu film you saw is called The Goddess and is her most iconic film. I highly recommend it to all silent and Chinese movie fans! You can get it on DVD from the San Francisco Silent Film Society. http://www.silentfilm.org/shop.html I should also mention that Cinema Epoch has released nearly 20 classic Shanghai films -- silent and sound -- on DVD with English intertitles and subtitles. The image quality is not that great. Don't expect a pristine, Criterion-quality transfer. But the subtitles are well-written (and seem accurate), and the silent films all have original music scores. Go to the following webpage for a list of what's available (scroll to the bottom): http://www.cinemaepoch.com/foreign.html You can probably find many of these on NetFlix. I especially recommend Spring In A Small Town, Queen Of Sports, Street Angel, and Daybreak.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:50:09 +0000

I remember seeing an early Chinese film on TCM staring Ruan Lingyg, It was about a prostitute who was using her money to support her son. Of course, she was scorned by the “respectable” people and the head of the school was going to expel her child because of the way his mother earned her living. She turned on her pimp and murdered him. Then, the school master had a change of heart and promised to raise the boy and protect him. She was exquisite with a face that registered all the pain and sorrow in her character’s life. The movie didn’t paint a pretty picture of what life must have been for Chinese women of the lower class; in fact, I was impressed with its honesty. I believe that the actress was caught up in some scandal and later committed suicide.