This wonderful melodrama (likely influenced by Raoul Walsh's 1926 hit What Price Glory) stars Zheng Junli as Zheng, a working man entangled in a love triangle with his brother Luan and Swallow (Yanyan Chen), a young woman who lives with her abusive father in an upstairs apartment. Xiao and Luan fight constantly, until they're called away to fight the Japanese Army (which had invaded Chinese territory in 1931), culminating in rapprochement and the eventual settling of their romantic competition. The China Film Institute's recent restoration is a marvel; clean, crisp and suitably lustrous, it highlights all the innovations of late-period silent cinema as seen through the eyes of director Shi Donshang. A forgotten gem.
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