Cinema
Daybreak
天明
Sun Yu · 1933
Synopsis
Lingling leaves her fishing village, crushed by taxes, and sets out for Shanghai with her cousin Zhang; both enter a spinning mill. Zhang, who protests against the night shifts imposed on the young girl, is dismissed and ships out on a vessel. Abused at the factory, Lingling ends up in a brothel. Later, Zhang returns, now a revolutionary, and Lingling protects him from those hunting him; she thus redeems herself, according to the University of British Columbia, before the advance of the revolutionary army.
Context
The film was first shown on 2 February 1933 at the Peking Theater in Shanghai; it runs for one hundred and sixteen minutes and was produced by Lianhua's second studio. It was Sun Yu's seventh film, and one of the first major roles of Li Lili, a star of the silent screen. It was made to commemorate the success of the Northern Expedition. The Festival des 3 Continents showed it in Nantes in 1996 under the title L'Aube, and a DVD with English subtitles was released in the United States in 2007.
Who it is for
A silent film of nearly two hours, with Chinese intertitles; a version with English subtitles is online on a university site in Vancouver.
Prizes and reception
Historians usually place it within left-wing cinema; others see it as a politically ambiguous film.
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