Basic Information
Film Name: "A River of Spring Water Flows East"
Year: 1947
Length: 210 mins
Genre: Drama
Region: China
Language: Mandarin Chinese
Color: B/W
Mix: Mono
Producer: China Kunlun Film Co.
Mix: Mono
Production: China Kunlun Film Company
Director: Cai Chusheng, Zheng Junli
Producer: Cai Chusheng, Zheng Junli
Playwright: Cai Chusheng, Zheng Junli, Cinematography: Zhu Jinming, Zheng Chonglan, Shen Xilin
Principal Actors
Bai Yang as Su Fen
Tao Jin as Zhang Zhongliang
Shanguan Yunzhu as He Wenyan
Shu Xiuwen as Wang Lizhen
Wu Yin as Granny
Zhou Bo Xun as Pang Hao Gong
Gao Zheng as Zhang Zhongmin
Drama
The story of modern Chen Shimei and Qin Xianglian. The director uses the changes in the family's life to show the social picture of the decade.
Su Fen, a female laborer in a Shanghai yarn factory, and Zhang Zhongliang, a night school teacher, meet and fall in love. Zhang Zhongliang's efforts to promote anti-Japanese propaganda and collect donations for the Volunteer Army have aroused the displeasure of the yarn factory's manager, Wen. Not long after, Su Fen and Zhongliang got married and had a son a year later.
"A River Flows East"
After the outbreak of the war in full force, Zhongliang left Shanghai to say goodbye to his loved ones as he joined the ambulance corps. Su-fen returned to the countryside with her children and mother-in-law. But the countryside has been invaded by the Japanese.
Zhongliang's younger brother Zhongmin and his teacher Wanhua joined the anti-Japanese guerrillas. Her father was hanged for asking the Japanese to reduce the grain levy. Su-fen returned to Shanghai again with her son and mother-in-law to the refugee office.
Zhongliang, who had suffered so much during his participation in the war, easily escaped to Chongqing, but had no one to turn to and was forced to go to Wang Lizhen, the sister-in-law of Wen's manager, whom he had met before the war. Wang Lizhen, who had become a socialite, found Zhongliang a job in her godfather Pang Haogong's company. Gradually, Zhongliang could not resist the temptation of a life of degradation and finally married Wang Lizhen.
At this time, Su Fen and her mother-in-law were leading a difficult life. Zhongliang became Pang Haogong's personal secretary and spent his days traveling among the upper class, leaving Su Fan and her mother-in-law behind. After the victory of the war, Su Fen still hoped for news of her husband. Zhongliang returns to Shanghai and has a relationship with Wang Lizhen's cousin, He Wenyan. To support her family, Su Fen worked as a maid in He Wenyan's house.
At a dinner party hosted by He Wenyan, Su Fen recognizes her husband Zhongliang and is shocked when she reveals the truth. Later, Su Fan received a letter from Zhong Min, who had married Wan Hua and wished his brother and sister-in-law happiness. Only then does Su Fan tell her mother-in-law the truth. Zhang's mother finds her son and rebukes Zhongliang to his face, but the cowardly Zhongliang is still unrepentant, so Su Fan has no choice but to throw herself into the river.
Behind the Scenes
The movie "A River Flows East" was filmed in 1947 and featured some of the biggest stars of the year, such as Bai Yang, Tao Jin, Shu Xiuwen and Shangguan Yunzhu. The film was released in Shanghai in October 1947 and received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response, with "tens of millions of people looking up and tens of millions of people stepping through the doors of the theater". The movie ran for more than three months, setting a record for the highest attendance of a domestic movie before the liberation. The number of viewers amounted to more than 700,000 people, accounting for 14.39% of the city's population, that is, no matter how old or young, rich or poor, every 7 people in Shanghai, on average, there is a person who has seen this movie. Such an achievement was the Hollywood blockbuster "Hibiscus", which could not be compared with it. Playwright Tian Han once commented, "Under such poor and humble material conditions in the Chinese film industry today, such an achievement is considered the highest achievement of a filmmaker." Hollywood Chinese-American cinematographer Huang Zongzhim even praised, "This is the best Chinese movie I have ever seen." Divided into two episodes, "Eight Years of Disorder" and "Before and After Daybreak", the movie "A River Flows East" condenses the history of more than ten years before and after the Anti-Japanese War into an ordinary civilian family, and delicately portrays the social scene of that time through the broken life and emotional sorrows and joys of this family. The film combines all the successful elements of a classic blockbuster: a grand historical background, twisted characters' destinies, deep insight into human nature, a tight narrative structure, and a strong cast. ...... The movie's four main characters, Zhang Zhongliang, Sufeng, Wang Lizhen, and He Wenyan, gather at a dance party for a play that is even taken as a model for teaching, and taught again and again in classrooms at film and television colleges. The movie has been used as a model for teaching in the classrooms of various film and television colleges. A River Flows East was banned from the theaters by the Kuomintang. However, after Zheng Junli sent a bouquet of flowers to the Kuomintang film censor, the film was finally allowed to be released. It turned out that Zheng Junli had put several gold watches in the bouquet.
Film Review
The movie condenses the complex social life in the decade before and after the war into a twisted and moving story of one family's encounter. The movie reveals that the whole society is in turmoil at the moment of national crisis with the emotion of fire in full swing, and strongly expresses the people's cry for justice.
The movie combines the techniques of classical Chinese novels, poems, operas, paintings and other arts into the form of movie expression, creating an artistic style that is pleasing to the audience.
Reflection on the social reality of China before and after the war was an important element of postwar Chinese cinema. If "Eight Thousand Miles of Road, Clouds and Moon" emphasizes the reflection on the war, then "A River Flows East" directed by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli, through the sorrows and joys of a family, takes a broader picture of life to tell the Chinese people's bitter struggles and sufferings during the war of resistance, and the oppression and insults they continue to endure after the war on the silver screen. Let people come to a clearer understanding of what this is all about.
The three plot lines in the movie are intertwined and contrasted, forming a true picture of the real life in China before and after the war. At the end of the movie, Su-fen leaves her last words to her son, "Don't be like your father, be like your uncle". This short sentence greatly deepens the theme and is the result of the author's reflection on real life.
Director's Biography
Cai Chusheng (1906-1965) walked the path of artistic creation through realism and nationalization of cinema. Most of the films he wrote and directed profoundly revealed the social contradictions in modern China, accused the society of old China and the corruption of the ruling class, poured out the voices of the people, and called for the arrival of liberation at dawn. His films are characterized by distinctive art, moving twists and turns in the story, with a beginning and an end, subtle characterization, rich in connotation, and a multi-faceted expression of the traditional ethics of the Chinese people. Cai Chusheng's masterpieces are "Fishing Song" and "A River Flows East" (co-directed with Zheng Junli). Both films set the highest attendance records for domestic films in the 1930s and 1940s. Especially "A River Flows East" is a typical example of his unique artistic style of utilizing the comprehensive means of film art, starting from the audience's aesthetic requirements and appreciation psychology, adopting contrasting techniques, eulogizing truth, goodness and beauty, and lashing out at falsehoods, evils and ugliness. This epic movie has a vast social background, with numerous events, many characters, complex relationships and a large time span. However, the movie is clear and layered, with a tacit echo at the beginning and the end, and the time-space transition is not obvious. This is Cai Chusheng skillful use of China's traditional artistic expression techniques to obtain good artistic results. In particular, he absorbed the techniques of unfolding the plot of chapter and verse novels and operas, and used the film montage means to combine the form of cross and contrast, transforming space under the same time, so that the plot unfolds step by step until the climax of the ending. The films written and directed by Cai Chusheng were y loved by the Chinese audience and occupy an important position in the history of Chinese cinema. Zheng Junli (1911-1969) was an actor and director. In the 1930s, he played important roles in more than 20 films, including The Great Road and The Lost Lamb, and later engaged in directing. In the 1940s, he co-directed "A River Flows East" with Tsai Chusheng, and his best work was "The Crow and the Sparrow". In this movie, Zheng Junli demonstrated his skillful directing with his artistic aesthetics of elegance and vulgarity and his combination of sadness and joy. The story of the film takes place in an alley house, with a lot of interior scenes and unusually narrow space, which made the director particularly flexible and expressive in the scheduling of scenes and the use of the camera. In the 1950s, Zheng Junli directed "Deadwood in Spring", "Lin Zexu" and "Nie Er". His "Deadwood in Spring" has a Chinese ink painting-like meaning, while "Lin Zexu" and "Nie Er", two biopics, both realistically expressed the historical figures of the past era, but not completely confined to the limitations of history, and reached the peak of the artistic quality of the biopic character creation at that time.