THE SPRING RIVER FLOWS EAST. (1947) DIRECTED BY CAI CHUSHENG AND ZHENG JUNLI. STARRING BAI YANG, TAO JIN, WU YIN, SHU XIUWEN AND SHANGGUAN YUNZHU. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
'How much sorrow can
one man have to bear?
As much as a river
of spring water flowing east.'
This fantastic three-hour-long epic
melodrama could be considered the Chinese GONE WITH THE WIND, it's
so filled with war, pain, suffering, war-induced separations and
glamorous dresses. I was glued to it for the whole three hours and my
interest never wavered once.
It's a film
of two parts, really, and both parts were released one after the
other in 1947 to great critical and commercial acclaim. It's
considered to be one of the greatest Chinese-language films ever made
and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good old melodrama
of a length you could only refer to as butt-numbing, haha. Let's take
a wee look at the plot now, my darling movie buddies.
It's the
story of a man called Zhongliang who gets separated from his wife,
baby son and elderly mother during the Second Sino-Japanese War. As
far as I can make out, this was a conflict that took place between
China and Japan from 1937 to 1945, eventually sort of blending into
WW2. For the history buffs out there, the first of these
Sino-Japanese wars happened in 1894 and lasted till the following
year.
I don't like
to lay blame but it looks as if Japan's imperialist policy was the cause of both these wars. The Japanese wanted to extend their
influence as far as they could to get their hands on raw materials
and resources such as food and labour. As you'll see from the film,
it also looks as if the Chinese people were pretty badly oppressed by the Japanese during this period, of whom it
was often said back then that they were a 'cruel race.'
The film
concentrates heavily on the terrible suffering, hardships and
privations endured by Zhongliang's little family in his absence.
While he's off gadding about hiding from the Japanese, his wife
Sufen, his little son and his dear old Mum are starving and putting
up with awful abuse from their Japanese masters.
Thankfully,
I've never known what it's like to be hungry, but to watch Sufen,
little Kangsheng and Sufen's mother-in-law scrabbling about for food
or slaving in the paddy fields for the Japanese would surely make you
appreciate what you have.
Sufen
is a strong, decent woman who'd go hungry herself before she'd see
her son or Mum-in-law starve. The mother-in-law is a dead ringer for
Scarlett O'Hara's 'Mammy' in
the aforementioned GONE WITH THE WIND, by
the way. She's a darling of a mother-in-law, patient, kind and good-humoured and she loves her daughter-in-law and little grandson
to bits.
Sufen
longs and prays for Zhongliang's return for eight long years. How the
little trio survives the first half of the film, 'EIGHT
WAR-TORN YEARS,' is a miracle.
While the man of the family is off doing other things, they think of
him constantly as they struggle for their very survival. It's so
unfair. Stock footage of the war blends in seamlessly with the film's
action to give us a really clear picture of what life was like for
them during this traumatic period.
The
second half of the film, 'DAWN,' sees
Zhongliang, arguably the worst husband in the world since I don't
know who, bigamously married to a glamorous rich woman with a wealthy
businessman for her stepfather. Humph. It's well for some, isn't it?
Zhongliang grows a dapper Clark-Gable-as-Rhett-Butler-type moustache
and dresses sharply in the style of the time. He
resembles a matinée
idol
of the day as he struts about the place laughing and joking. Note the way they treat their servants, by the way. It'd make your blood boil.
His
high-maintenance wife looks like a super-glam Chinese Joan Crawford
in her fabulous 'Forties gear and make-up. She
has the cutest shoes, too! Their whole set-up, the
exact opposite to the impoverished Sufen's, looks just like one of those
marvellous old Bette Davis Hollywood melodramas you watch on TV on lazy Saturday afternoons.
Zhongliang, by now a
rich businessman himself thanks to his wife's connections, has all but forgotten
the struggles and hardships of his old life, not to mention his first
family.
He's
become morally lax too, as we see when he starts an affair with his
wife's bitchy, equally glamorous and stylish cousin. It's a dangerous
move for a man whose missus is insanely jealous. By now, the
audience is positively longing for a karmic come-uppance for the seemingly
unfeeling jerk who's abandoned his first family for a life of ease
and riches. Don't worry, folks. Karma's been keeping her eye on Mr.
Two-Wives. There will be
a highly satisfying show-down...
This
superb Chinese-language blockbuster- there's no other way to describe
it- is out on DVD on 20th
February 2017 courtesy of the lovely peeps at the British Film
Institute.
It'll
appeal to anyone who loves their old black-and-white 'Forties
melodramas, old war movies or just any big sprawling epic films with a terrific
story like GONE WITH THE WIND and
others like it. I'd heartily recommend it to fans of history and
melodrama alike. You just can't go wrong with it.
BFI
releases are available from all good home entertainment retailers or
by mail order from the BFI Shop. Tel: 020 7815 1350 or online at
www.bfi.org.uk/shop
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
No comments:
Post a Comment