Three Women (1949)

Original title

丽人行

Directed by

Chen Liting

Genre

drama film

Country

People's Republic of China

Runtime

1h 42m

Rating

6.2 of 10 from 4 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Three women from different social classes navigate life in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation. A factory worker, a resistance activist, and a bourgeois woman each face their own struggles.

earnestpoignantseriousperiodsocially-consciouswartimecharacter-drivenmelodramatic

What happens

Women Side by Side (Chinese: 麗人行), also translated as Three Women and Female Fighters, is a 1949 Chinese film directed by Chen Liting, made near the end of the Republican era. It is Chen's most famous directorial work. Denounced as a "poisonous weed" during the Cultural Revolution, the film is now considered a Chinese classic. The film is adapted from a play of the same title written by the noted leftist playwright Tian Han, who also wrote the 1932 film Three Modern Women. Tian Han and Chen Liting co-wrote the screenplay. The film tells the story of three women in wartime Shanghai under Japanese occupation: an uneducated factory worker, an intellectual resistance activist, and a bourgeois new woman. In many ways it can be seen as a sequel to Cai Chusheng's 1935 film New Women. Produced by the left-wing Kunlun Film Company, the film has a strong anti-Kuomintang government undertone. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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