The Spring River Flows East (1947)

Original title

一江春水向东流

Directed by

Cai Chusheng, Zheng Junli

Genre

drama film

Country

Republic of China

Runtime

3h 10m

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 11 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This epic 1947 Chinese film follows a family's struggles during and after the Second Sino-Japanese War. It is told in two parts, showing the hardships and separations caused by the conflict and its aftermath.

epicemotionalsweepingtragicslow-burnmelodramaticwartimenostalgicbleak

What happens

The Spring River Flows East, also translated as The Tears of Yangtze, is a 1947 epic Chinese film written and directed by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli and produced by the Kunlun Film Company. It is considered one of the most influential and extraordinary Chinese films ever made, and China's equivalent of Gone with the Wind. With both films based on the story of war and chaos, they contain an epic style considered classics in the film history of both China and the United States. The Hong Kong Film Awards ranked it in its list of greatest Chinese-language films ever made at number 27. It ran continuously in theatres for three months and attracted 712,874 viewers during the period, setting a record in post World War II China. The film features two of the biggest stars of the time: Bai Yang and Shangguan Yunzhu. The film is over three hours long and consists of two parts, Eight War-Torn Years (八年離亂) and Before and after the Dawn (天亮前後), released in separate dates in the same year, as it first premiered on October 9. It details the trials and tribulations of a family during and immediately after the Second Sino-Japanese War. Part One, Eight War-Torn Years tells the story of the early life and marriage of a young couple, Sufen (Bai Yang) and Zhang Zhongliang (Tao Jin) and the strain produced when the husband is forced to flee to Chongqing, losing contact with the family he leaves behind in wartime Shanghai. Part Two describes Zhang Zhongliang's return to Shanghai after a second marriage into a wealthy business family among whom by chance his impoverished first wife Sufen has found work as a maid. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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