One of the few Chinese films to appear on this list. It’s even rarer considering the fact that the Chinese Civil War is still raging in this period of time. Much of the Chinese film industry was blasted to smithereens during the war and right after Mao’s victory a heavy curtain of censorship will fall over Chinese filmmakers, ostensibly barring them from the international scene until the 1980’s. This film is very moving and touching and almost has elements of the Postman Always Rings Twice but without the murder. The love quadrangle that occurs between the characters is very natural and unfolds in a very realistic manner.
The photography of Chinese films has definitely improved since Song at Midnight and the other Chinese films we’ve seen. The quality of the film itself is still pretty grainy and low-res compared to Hollywood, however it is a marked improvement from the films of the early 1930’s.
This film deals with the rigidness of marriage and relationships in the era and you can see a fusion of western and chinese culture in this particular film. In a way this film is a time capsule of what China could have been had the Communists not succeeded in the war and reshaped china and rid it of any western elements. There is a lot of potential for Chinese cinema at this point in time and ultimately the Communist victory is the death knell for that potential in Mainland China at least. Hong Kong cinema will come to dominate the Chinese language market and it will be full of action and wuxia films which are far more ridiculous than these serious dramas that Chinese filmmakers were trying for in the 1930s and even up to late 1940’s.
In a way this film is a dying cry and a reminder of what could have been.