Acting
Night Inn (Chinese: 夜店; pinyin: Yè Diǎn) is a Chinese black-and-white film released in 1947, directed by Huang Zuolin and starring the popular Shanghai singer Zhou Xuan. The film is based on the Chinese theatrical adaptation of Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths by playwright Ke Ling. The play and the film were both banned in China during the Cultural Revolution but were popular in the post-Mao period.
In the spring of 1949, a war is about to happen between the Liberation Army and Kuomintang Army on the Yangtze River. The Liberation Army dispatches a reconnaissance to scout the southern parts of the River, whose work is actually full of hardships and dangers. However, with the help of the local crowd and the guerrillas, finally, the members of the reconnaissance succeed in the commission and offer valuable information to the Liberation Army, making great contributions in the war.
San mao (3 hairs) was a very popular Chinese comic strip first published in 1935-37, continued from 1948 into the 1990s, about a young orphan boy struggling with life in Shanghai.
Chen Shaochang (Shi Hui), a primary school principal widowed at a young age, raises his children alone. His close friend's daughter, Liu Minhua (Zhu Jiachen), whom he hasn't seen for many years, begins working at the primary school through his introduction. Chen Shaochang's son, Jianzhong (Han Fei), and daughter-in-law, Feng Lijun (Li Huanqing), consider Chen's job undignified. After retiring, he is filled with melancholy, understood only by Minhua. Although their relationship deepens, they must contend with the ethical and social norms of Republican-era Shanghai.
Set during the Orphan Island period of Shanghai, the film follows a group of revolutionary patriots-cum-assassins who finally earn the support of the suffering public. ‘We’re all Chinese,’ so they repeatedly chant.
The great Chinese star Shi Hui stars as an energetic lawyer fighting for the good of his neighbors in this stirring, almost Capra-esque drama from Cao Yu, one of China’s most important twentieth-century playwrights.
