Underplayed Gems

The Big Road (1934)

The Big Road poster
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
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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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)

More like this

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