Spring in a Small Town

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Spring in a Small Town
Directed by Fei Mu
Written by Li Tianji (short story)
Starring Wei Wei
Zhang Hongmei
Li Wei
Distributed by Cinema Epoch
Wenhua Film Company
Release date(s) 1948
Running time 85 min.
Language Chinese (Mandarin)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Spring in a Small Town (Chinese: 小城之春; pinyin: Xiǎochéng zhī chūn) was a Chinese film released in 1948 and directed by Fei Mu. The film was based on a short story by Li Tianji, and was produced by the Wenhua Film Company.

The film was forgotten after 1949 in the mainland but its reputation has within the last 20 years become known as one of the greatest Chinese films ever made.

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[edit] Synopsis

Taking place in a ruined family compound after the war, the film tells the story of the once prosperous Dai family. The husband and patriarch, Dai Liyan (Shi Yu) is an invalid, and spends his days in the courtyard nostalgic for the past. His marriage to Zhou Yuwen (Wei Wei) has long been rendered loveless, though both still feel concern for the other. Liyan's young teenage sister Dai Xiu (Zhang Hongmei), meanwhile, is too young to remember the past, and stays cheerful and playful in the ruins of her home.

Into this dreary but unchanging existence comes Liyan's childhood friend Zhang Zhichen (Li Wei), a doctor from Shanghai and a former flame of Zhou Yuwen before she ever met her husband. The rest of the film details Zhou Yuwen's conflicting emotions between her love for Zhang, and her loyalty to her husband and his family.

[edit] Cast

  • Wei Wei as Yuwen, the heroine;
  • Shi Yu as Dai Liyan, her husband;
  • Li Wei as Zhang Zhichen, Dai Liyan's childhood friend and Yuwen's former lover
  • Cui Chaoming as Lao Huang, Dai Liyan and Yuwen's loyal servant;
  • Zhang Hongmei as Dai Xiu, Dai Liyan's young sister.

[edit] Reputation

Made after the war and the so-called "Solitary Island" period of Shanghai film-making, Spring in a Small Town, unlike its leftist predecessors of the 1930s, was a more intimate affair with only tangential references to the politics of the day. Indeed, the film can be distinguished from those earlier works by its more mature treatment of inter-personal conflicts, particularly in the sense that there are no villains or antagonists except for time and circumstance. Even the husband, who ostensibly stands between Zhou Yuwen and Zhang Zhichen's love, is an inherently decent and good human being.

Unfortunately, because of this apparent lack of "political" grounding, Spring in a Small Town was rejected by the Communists as rightist or reactionary, and was quickly forgotten by those on the mainland following the Communist victory in China in 1949.[1] Beginning in the 1980s, however, the film had a resurgance in popularity after languishing in Communist archives for several decades. Today it is considered one of the classics of Chinese film, with the Hong Kong Film Awards Association naming it the greatest Chinese film ever made in 2005.[2] In 2002, the film was remade by Tian Zhuangzhuang as Springtime in a Small Town.

[edit] DVD releases

Spring in a Small Town was released on Region 1 DVD on May 8, 2007 by Cinema Epoch. The disc features English subtitles.

An earlier all-region DVD version was also released in the United States by the Guangzhou Beauty Culture Communication Co.Ltd on December 1, 2006.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Zhang Yingjin, "Introduction" in Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943, ed. Yingjin Zhang (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 8.
  2. ^ "‘Spring in a Small Town’ tops best 100 Chinese films," Sina English, March 15, 2005 (15 August 2006).

[edit] External links

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