Cinema
New Women
新女性
Cai Chusheng · 1935
Synopsis
In Shanghai, Wei Ming teaches music in a girls' school and dreams of writing; her neighbour Aying, a factory worker, teaches work songs to her comrades. Doctor Wang, the school's administrator, wants to make her his concubine; she refuses, in love with a publisher who does not return her love, and Wang has her dismissed. Her daughter, raised far from her by her sister, joins her and falls ill; the hospital demands payment in advance, and the publisher refuses the advance Wei Ming asks for on her novel.
Context
The film was premiered on 3 February 1935, produced by Lianhua from a screenplay by Sun Shiyi, with music by Nie Er. It was inspired by the suicide of the actress and screenwriter Ai Xia, which had occurred the previous year. Its lead actress, Ruan Lingyu, took her own life on 8 March that year, and Lu Xun wrote against the gutter press; the journalists, who felt slandered by the film, had obtained a public apology from Lianhua. A print is held at the China Film Archive, and the Three Continents Festival showed it at Nantes in 1996 and in 2013.
Who it is for
A silent film of one hundred and six minutes, with intertitles; a version with English subtitles is available online.
Prizes and reception
The Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes, which screened it, sees in it a magnificent portrait of a woman, with great visual invention.
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