IDS 101: Eat Drink Man Woman in China: Films

A young woman can only support and educate her son by working as a prostitute in 1930s Shanghai. One of the rare films of famed Chinese star Ruan Lingyu.

An educated modern woman struggles with marital difficulties, unemployment, health problems, and social pressures.

Wang Renmei, in her first starring role, plays Xiao Feng or 'Little Wind' in this story about a young girl who loses her mother and then her father. Jiang Bo, a wealthy painter who discovers her in a small fishing village and makes her his model and later takes her to Shanghai...

In an age of intrigue and vice, his was a voice of morality and virtue. 2,500 years after his death, he is revered as one of the greatest teachers in history and his name is synonymous with ageless wisdom.

Four short documentaries about contemporary China, focusing on political life, women, environmental degradation, and intellectual freedom therein.

This film follows a recent photo shoot in China, photographing the effects of that country's massive industrial revolution...

During the Chinese Cultural Revoution, which occurred from 1966 to 1976, more than 17 million Chinese junior and high school students were sent to the countryside to learn from the peasants. They left their parents behind in the cities. Many were unprepared for the loneliness, hunger and backbreaking labor that lasted for a decade or more.

Details the lives of nine ambitious young Chinese ranging from their late 20 to early 30's. Living in a society that is experiencing rapid change, the film looks at how these young professionals and workers are adjusting and looking for opportunities in the newly prosperous culture.

The film recounts Ruan Lingyu's life both public and private in the years immediately leading up to her premature death. She had quite a number of famous performances for Shanghai's Lianhua studios, including New Woman (1934) and Goddess (1934)....

The story of a master chef and his three adult daughters, all of whom are seeking love and happiness in different ways.

With supernatural skill and no fear a nameless soldier embarks on a mission of revenge against the fearsome army that massacred his people. Now, to achieve the justice he seeks, he must take on the empire's most ruthless assassins and reach the enemy he has sworn to defeat.

Set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, a young woman finds herself swept up in a radical plot to assassinate a ruthless and secretive intelligence agent....

A young woman is ordered to a remote, rural, Chinese village to be the substitute teacher and is told that she must keep the class intact for one month or she won't be paid. When one of her students disappears into the city to find work, she goes after him.

In 1920's China, women had few options. So following the death of her father, Songlian, a beautiful nineteen-year-old college student agrees to marry a wealthy nobleman. She is to be wife number four at his estate, where daily life revolves around an ancient family custom: the master raises a red lantern outside the house of the wife with whom he desires to spend the night...

Mulan is the only child of an honored family. When the Huns invade China, Mulan's father decides to fight for his country and the honor of his family. Mulan decides to take her father's place in the army. (Bejing Opera)

A beautiful prostitute is used as bait between rival gang lords in 1930's Shanghai.

he year is 1939. The life of a young peasant girl in Northern Shaanxi province is changed forever by a Communist soldier sent out to collect folk songs for the use of revolutionary armies.

Clever Mulan proves her worth outside of her tradition-bound society when, disguised as the male soldier, "Ping", she bravely takes her father's place in the Imperial Army. Helped by her funny guardian dragon Mushu and a lucky cricket named Cri-kee, Mulan strives to earn the respect of her fellow warriors and her courageous Captain Shang.

A dramatic history of Aisin-Gioro "Henry" Pu Yi, who at the age of three became the last of the Emperors of China. Chronicles his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, as the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; and his exploitation by the invading Japanese as the ruler of Manchukuo from 1932 to 1945.

"Chan visits the country of his honorable ancestors, only to encounter a murder and opium ring"--Container.

The Joy Luck Club is four women in San Francisco who have played mah jong together on a weekly basis to for forty some years.. Born in China, the Joy Luck Club members came to America as young adults; their daughters are 100% American.

A Taiwanese gay man living in Manhattan agrees to a marriage of convenience with a mainland Chinese woman in need of a green card. His parents are thrilled, and fly to the States to help him plan a lavish wedding banquet.

Set in San Francisco's Chinatown in the late 1950's. Pretty Mei Li has stowed away on a Chinese steamer with her professor father to become a mail-order bride for nightclub owner Sammy Fong. Sammy, however, is completely infatuated with saucy showgirl Linda Low, who is intent on making him jealous enough to propose to her....

The story of a British boy, James Graham, whose privileged life is upturned by the Japanese invasion of Shanghai, December 8, 1941. Separated from his parents, he is eventually captured, and taken to Soo Chow confinement camp, next to a captured Chinese airfield.