| A Spray of Plum Blossoms | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Bu Wancang |
| Written by | Huang Yicuo |
| Produced by | Luo Mingyou |
| Starring | Ruan Lingyu Wang Cilong Lim Cho Cho Jin Yan |
| Cinematography | Huang Shaofen |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | United States: Cinema Epoch (DVD) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 100 min |
| Country | China |
| Languages | Silent film Written Chinese and English intertitles |
A Spray of Plum Blossoms (Chinese: 一剪梅; pinyin: Yī jiǎn méi) is a 1931 silent Chinese film directed by Bu Wancang and starring Ruan Lingyu, Wang Cilong, Lim Cho Cho, and Jin Yan. It is a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The film is one of several collaborations between Bu Wancang and two of the top Chinese movie stars of the day Ruan Lingyu and the Korean-born Jin Yan and was produced by the Lianhua Film Company.
The film is noted for its attempted "Westernized stylings" including its surreal use of decor, as well as women-soldiers with long hair. The film also had English subtitles, but as some scholars have noted, since few foreigners watched these films, the subtitles were more to give off an air of the West rather than to serve any real purpose.[1][2]
- ^ Pang, Laikwan, Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 26.
- ^ Bi-qi Beatrice Lei, "Paradox of Chinese Nationalism: Two Gentlemen of Verona in Silent Film", in Bi-qi Beatrice Lei and Ching-Hsi Perng (eds.), Shakespeare in Culture (Taiwan: NTU Press, 2012), 251-284