Crossroads (1937)

Original title

十字街頭

Directed by

Shen Xiling

Genre

drama film

Country

Republic of China

Runtime

1h 50m

Rating

6.2 of 10 from 6 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A group of young people in 1930s Shanghai cope with unemployment and love during the Great Depression. The film mixes comedy with hints of the looming war with Japan.

lightheartedwrysocially awarebittersweetgroundedurbanseriocomicperiod piece

What happens

Crossroads is a 1937 Chinese seriocomedy film directed by Shen Xiling, starring Bai Yang and Zhao Dan. The film exemplified the growing trend of Chinese films by the mid-1930s of incorporating references (both veiled and explicit) to the war with Japan. In this way, Crossroads joins films like Blood on Wolf Mountain by Fei Mu and The Big Road by Sun Yu. Crossroads has its background in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Produced by Mingxing Film Company, the film also represented an expansion by Mingxing into the leftist film market that had been dominated by its rival Lianhua Film Company, due to a flagging financial situation. In 2001, a sequel was made, despite the half-century gap, entitled New Crossroads. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Street Angel (1937)
• Song at Midnight (1937)
• Night in the City (1933)
• Plunder of Peach and Plum (1934)
• Scenes of City Life (1935)
• 800 Heroes (1938)
• Blood on Wolf Mountain (1936)
• Youth of China (1937)