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The Spring River Flows East

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The Spring River Flows East (1947)

192 min - Drama, Foreign - 1 January 1947
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30's China. The village of a poor family is taken over by the occupying Japanese army. One son, Zhongliang, leaves his wife and young son to join a medic group for the Chinese Army. The other son, Zhangmin goes into hiding to protect his family. The focus shifts back and forth from the brothers' parents and Zhongliang's wife and son to Zhongliang's newfound life of luxury in a town not too far away. The plight of Zhongliang's mother, his wife, Sufan and her son, Kongeson is contrasted with Zhongliang's rise in a flourishing company.

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Storyline

30's China. The village of a poor family is taken over by the occupying Japanese army. One son, Zhongliang, leaves his wife and young son to join a medic group for the Chinese Army. The other son, Zhangmin goes into hiding to protect his family. The focus shifts back and forth from the brothers' parents and Zhongliang's wife and son to Zhongliang's newfound life of luxury in a town not too far away. The plight of Zhongliang's mother, his wife, Sufan and her son, Kongeson is contrasted with Zhongliang's rise in a flourishing company.


Collections: Chusheng Cai, Junli Zheng

Genres: Drama, Foreign

Details

Official Website: 
Language:  普通话
Release Date:  1 January 1947

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Technical Specs

Runtime:  3 h 12 min

The village of a poor family is taken over by the occupying Japanese army. One son, Zhongliang, leaves his wife and young son to join a medic group for the Chinese Army.

Watch online The Spring River Flows East Part 1

The Spring River Flows East Part 2

The Spring River Flows East, also translated as The Tears of Yangtze, is a 1947 epic Chinese film written and directed by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli and produced by the Kunlun Film Company. It is considered one of the most influential and extraordinary Chinese films ever made, and China’s equivalent of the Gone with the Wind. The Hong Kong Film Awards ranked it in its list of greatest Chinese-language films ever made at number 27. It ran continuously in theatres for three months, and attracted 712,874 viewers during the period, setting a Chinese record. The film features two of the biggest stars of the time: Bai Yang and Shangguan Yunzhu.

The film is over three hours long and consists of two parts, Eight War-Torn Years (八年離亂) and The Dawn (天亮前后), released one after the other the same year. It details the trials and tribulations of a family during and immediately after the Second Sino-Japanese War. Part One, Eight War-Torn Years tells the story of the early life and marriage of a young couple, Sufen (Bai Yang) and Zhang Zhongliang (Tao Jin) and the strain produced when the husband is forced to flee to Chungking, losing contact with the family he leaves behind in wartime Shanghai. Part Two describes Zhang Zhongliang’s return to Shanghai after a second marriage into a wealthy bourgeois clan among whom by chance his impoverished first wife Sufen has found work as a maid.[wikipedia]