One country I have basically never heard of movies coming from is China. While it's pretty easy to see why this is the case today with the country being ruled by a Marxist dictatorship, it even seemed to apply during its time as a republic. This movie, made while Japan was at war with china, is about an unnamed prostitute in Shanghai and her tireless efforts to provide a good life for her son: something that she never had a chance of having. The film starts with the woman (Ruan Lingyu) on the run from a police search, and she encounters a mob boss (Zhang Zhizhi) who offers to hide her from them, but only if she's willing to have intercourse with him. The boss later finds out where the woman lives and shows up at her apartment with two of his thugs. They see that she has a small child. The boss proceeds to take all the woman's earnings in order to finance his gambling, which leads to the woman telling the landlady she's going to run away. Somehow, even in her new home, the boss finds her again. He gets her to be loyal to him by threatening to sell her son to somebody. When he leaves, she begins hiding the money she's made from prostitution in a hole in the wall. Eventually, she's able to get enough money to send her son to school, which leads to condemnation from the boss, who says he never learned to read but is still rich now. Meanwhile, the son is chastised by his classmates because they seem to know his mother is a sex worker, and this rumor makes its way to the parents of several children. They write to the principal and say the kid needs to be expelled because he comes from a disreputable family. The principal visits the woman in her apartment one day and finds the rumor is true, but is hesitant to expel her son after he sees how much she wants to see him escape his bleak life. The principal holds a meeting with the committee, and they ultimately decide to expel her child in order to preserve the school's clean image. The principal, unable to bear this news, resigns. The woman once again tries to move somewhere where the boss can't reach her, but as she goes to retrieve her hidden money, she finds it isn't there. She confronts the boss, who tells her he already blew it all on gambling. Enraged, the woman breaks a glass bottle over his head and kills him. The woman is subsequently found guilty and sentenced to 12 years in prison. While there, she comes face to face with the former principal again, but is mad, thinking he's the one responsible for her son's expulsion. He tells her the committee wouldn't accept his decision, but he's willing to retrieve her son from the orphanage he's now in so that he can raise him himself. The woman agrees, but says not to make any mention of who his real mother was once he's an adult. She then prepares herself for her long and lonely prison sentence. Being arguably the first chinese movie I've ever seen, The Goddess far exceeded my expectations. It shows how even almost a century ago, some people are born into unenviable societal positions and have no choice but to endure them because any attempts made to escape them often fail or backfire. With china being a pretty poor and agricultural place until fairly recently, this type of story was probably incredibly common. Ruan can be viewed as kind of the east Asian counterpart to Jean Harlow, as she was one of china's biggest film stars in the 30s, but died young. In this movie, she portrays a selfless girl who puts everything else first for the benefit of her son, which is a concept any parent can readily understand. The boss is also a good villain, seeing as how it seems there isn't any low he won't sink to. He's even willing to sell the woman's son just to fuel his bad habits. It's also nice how the principal intervenes on behalf of the mother at the end. Even though she won't be seeing her son for a long time (if ever again), she can be happy knowing that his life will be way different compared to hers. Even though it'll go over the heads of most viewers, director Wu Yonggang included several influences from western cinema, such as the protagonist's willingness to go through hard times in order to achieve something for a relative. Sadly, this movie was probably among the countless things targeted by Mao's communists during the cultural revolution when chinese officials sought to destroy every relic or piece of art that wasn't about socialism. Overall, I really liked this movie. It's kind of anachronistic being from the 30s but not having any sound, but I can't imagine the film having the same effect on an audience if it wasn't silent.
Review of Shen nu
