Who knows the old movie "A River Flows East"

basic document

Movie name: A river flows eastward.

Year: 1947

Length: 2 10 minute

Type: plot

Location: China.

Language: Mandarin

Color color: black and white

Mixed sound: mono

Producer: China Kunlun Film Company.

Director: Cai Chusheng Zheng

Drama: Cai Chusheng Zheng Lijun Photography: Zhu Jinming Zheng Chonglan Shen Xilin

main actor

White Shi Yang powder

Tao Jinshi Zhang Zhongliang

Shang Guanyunzhu plays He Yanwen.

Shu Xiuwen plays Wang Lizhen.

Wu Yin plays a woman.

Boxun Zhou plays Pang.

Gao Zhengshi Zhang Zhongmin

Plot introduction

The story of modern Chen Shimei and Qin Xianglian. The director showed the social picture of ten years with the changes of family life.

Su Fen, a female worker in a cotton mill in Shanghai, met and fell in love with Zhang Zhongliang, a night school teacher. Zhang Zhongliang raised money for the volunteers to publicize the Anti-Japanese War, which aroused the dissatisfaction of Wen, the manager of the cotton mill. Before long, Su Fen and Zhong Liang got married and had a son a year later.

A spring river flows eastward.

After the full-scale outbreak of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Zhongliang left Shanghai to bid farewell to his relatives because he joined the ambulance service. Element fragrance with children, mother-in-law back home. But the countryside has been occupied by Japanese invaders.

Zhong Liang's younger brother Zhong Min and his teacher Wan Hua joined the anti-Japanese guerrillas. My father was hanged for asking the Japanese invaders to reduce their grain. Element fragrance returned to Shanghai with her son and mother-in-law and went to the Refugee Bureau.

Zhong Liang went through a lot of hardships in the process of participating in the Anti-Japanese War, and finally fled to Chongqing, but he was helpless and forced by life. He went to see the sister-in-law of Manager Wen whom he knew before the Anti-Japanese War. She has become a social butterfly and found a job for Zhongliang in her company in michel platini Pang. Gradually, Zhongliang couldn't stand the temptation of depraved life and finally married IDA wong.

At this time, element fragrance and her mother-in-law lived a hard life. Zhongliang became Pang's private secretary, shuttling between the upper classes all day, leaving Su Fen and others behind. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Su Fen still looked forward to her husband's letter. After Zhongliang returned to Shanghai, he had a relationship with his cousin. In order to support the family, Su Fen went to work as a maid.

At a dinner party hosted by He, Su Fen recognized her husband Zhong Liang and was surprised when she told the truth. Later, Su Fen received a letter from Zhong Min who married Wan Hua, wishing his brother and sister-in-law a happy family. At this time, element fragrance told her mother-in-law the truth. Mother Zhang found her son and denounced Zhongliang face to face, but the cowardly Zhongliang still did not repent, and Su Fen was helpless and threw himself into the river.

Behind the scenes story

The film "A River Flows East" was shot on 1947, and gathered the stars of Populus alba, Tao Jin, Xiu Wenshu, Shang Guanyunzhu and so on. After the film was released in Shanghai on June 1947+00, the response was extremely enthusiastic, and there was a spectacular scene of "thousands of people staring at their necks and stepping into the cinema gate". The film was released for more than three months, setting a record for the highest attendance rate of domestic films before liberation. The number of people watching movies reached more than 700,000, accounting for 14.39% of the city's population. That is to say, in Shanghai, on average, 1 person in every seven people has seen this film, regardless of age or wealth. This achievement is incomparable to the Hollywood blockbuster "Lotus Out of the Water". The playwright Tian Han once commented: "Under the poor and humble material conditions of China film industry today, such an achievement is the highest achievement of filmmakers." Hollywood Chinese photographer JamesWongHowe even praised: "This is the best domestic film I have ever seen." The film "A River Flows East" is divided into two episodes: Eight Years Away from Chaos and Before and After Dawn, which condensed the history of an ordinary civilian family for more than ten years, and carefully portrayed the social situation at that time through the broken life and emotional joys and sorrows of this family. This film combines all the successful elements of classic blockbusters: grand historical background, tortuous characters' fate, profound insight into human nature, compact narrative structure, and strong cast ... A play in which four protagonists, Zhang Zhongliang, Su Fen, He Wei, are gathered at the ball is regarded as a teaching model and will be discussed in the classrooms of various film and television colleges. "A Spring River Flows East" was once made difficult by the Kuomintang and was forbidden to be shown. But when Zheng sent a bunch of flowers to the Kuomintang film inspector, the film was finally released. It turned out that Zheng put several gold watches in the flowers.

Film evaluation

The film condensed the complicated social life of nearly ten years before and after the Anti-Japanese War into a family experience, forming a tortuous and moving story. The film reveals that the nation is in crisis and the whole society is in numerous turmoil, which strongly expresses the people's voice for justice.

The film integrates China's classical novels, poems, operas, paintings and other artistic expressions into the forms of film art, creating an artistic style that is loved by the general audience.

Reflection on China's social reality before and after the Anti-Japanese War is an important content of China's films after the war. If "Eight Thousand Miles of Clouds and the Moon" reflects the reflection on the war, then "A River Flows East" directed by Cai Chusheng and Zheng shows the story of the struggle and suffering of China people in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the oppression and humiliation they continue to endure after the end of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression on the screen through the joys and sorrows of a family. Let people know clearly, why is this?

The three main plot lines in the film interweave and develop, and contrast and describe, which constitutes the real picture of China's real life before and after the Anti-Japanese War. At the end of the film, Su Fen left his last words to his son "Don't be like his father, be like his uncle". This short speech greatly deepened the theme and was the result of the author's thinking about real life.

Director profile

Cai Chusheng (1906— 1965) took a realistic and nationalized artistic creation path. Most of the films he directed profoundly exposed the social contradictions in modern China, accused the society and the ruling class of old China of corruption, poured out people's voices and called for the liberation of dawn. His films have distinctive artistic features, touching stories, delicate characters and rich connotations, which show the traditional ethics of the Chinese nation in many ways. Cai Chusheng's masterpieces include Yu and A River Flowing East (co-produced with Zheng). These two films created the highest attendance records of domestic films in the 1930s and 1940s respectively. In particular, "A River Flows East" is a typical embodiment of his unique artistic style. He is good at using the comprehensive means of film art, starting from the aesthetic requirements and appreciation psychology of the audience, and adopting a comparative method to eulogize the truth, goodness and beauty, and lashing the false, evil and ugly. This epic film has a broad social background, many events, many characters, complex relationships and a long time span. However, the context of the film is clear, the layers are distinct, the beginning and the end echo tacitly, and the time-space transformation shows no trace. This is a good artistic effect obtained by Cai Chusheng's skillful use of China's traditional artistic expression. In particular, he absorbed Zhang Hui's novels and operas to unfold the plot, and used the method of film montage to transform the space at the same time in the form of crossing and contrast, so that the plot unfolded step by step until the climax. Cai Chusheng's films are deeply loved by China audiences and occupy an important position in the history of China films. Zheng (1911-1969) is an actor-born director. In the 1930s, he played an important role in more than 20 films, such as The Road and The Lost Lamb, and then worked as a director. The representative work in the 1940s was The Crow and the Sparrow, in addition to Cai Chusheng's A River in Spring. In this film, Zheng showed his skillful directing skills with his artistic aesthetics of appealing to both refined and popular tastes and artistic characteristics of blending sadness and joy. The story of the film takes place in a alley house with many indoor scenes and extremely narrow space. The director is particularly flexible and expressive in scene scheduling and lens use. In the 1950s, Zheng and director directed The Dead Trees Meet the Spring, Lin Zexu and Nie Er. His Dead Wood in Spring has the meaning of China's ink painting, while Lin Zexu and Nie Er's two biographies not only truly reproduce the historical figures in the past, but also are not completely limited by history, reaching the peak of the artistic quality of biographies at that time.