Cinema
Plunder of Peach and Plum
桃李劫
Ying Yunwei · 1934
Synopsis
Tao Jianping and Li Lilian leave university together, to the sound of a song taken up by the young graduates, and marry, determined to serve society. Both find a good office job, but corruption catches up with them there: rather than yield to pressure, each of them gives up their post. This refusal to compromise leads them, according to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, into a spiral that impoverishes them.
Context
The film was presented on 16 December 1934 at the Jincheng cinema in Shanghai, according to Chinawriter; it was the first from Diantong, a company linked to the Communist Party according to Sixth Tone, and one of the first Chinese films with an optical soundtrack, recorded on the film itself. Yuan Muzhi, co-author of the screenplay, plays the male lead opposite Chen Bo'er, who became his wife. Nie Er composed its graduation song to words by Tian Han, according to The Paper and Chinawriter. The Venice Biennale revived it in 2005 in a retrospective on the secret history of Asian cinema.
Who it is for
A sound film of about one hundred minutes; of note is a long sequence shot that follows a taxi into the lobby of a hotel.
Prizes and reception
Sixth Tone places it among the films of a short-lived company that produced some of the most important leftist works of the Republic.
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