The Big Road (1934)

Original title

大路

Directed by

Sun Yu

Genre

drama film, silent film

Country

Republic of China

Runtime

1h 44m

Rating

6.2 of 10 from 18 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A group of young Chinese road builders work together to construct a strategic road that will help defend their country against foreign invaders. The story focuses on their friendships, romances, and the spirit of collective effort.

patrioticupbeatromanticearnestmusicalidealisticnostalgicenergetic

What happens

The Great Road (Chinese: 大路; pinyin: Dàlù), also known as The Big Road and The Highway, is a 1934 Chinese film directed by Sun Yu, produced in 1934 and released on January 1, 1935. The film stars Jin Yan and Li Lili, and was produced by Sun Yu specifically for Li Lili to capitalize on her image and rising popularity. The Great Road is a silent film with music and sound effects added in post-production. Along with Wild Rose (1931) and Little Toys (1933) the film is part of the National Defense Cinema with anti-Japanese elements. While it was critically dubbed as a "hard film", Sun Yu made no explicit references to the fact that "the enemy nation" in the film was Japan, and the film contained no direct confrontation with "the enemy" on a battlefield, under the Kuomintang government's censorship policy designed to prevent provoking the Japanese. Instead, he used the building of a road to defeat "the enemy" invaders to express the spirit of the Second Sino-Japanese War in an "elegant and romantic" way. Sun Yu called The Great Road his "representative work". The Great Road was named the 30th greatest Chinese film ever made by the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2004. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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• Night in the City (1933)
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