Crows and Sparrows

Crows and Sparrows (1949)

烏鴉與麻雀

A story of a corrupt party official who attempts to sell an apartment building he has appropriated from the original owner and the struggles of the tenants to prevent themselves being thrown onto the street.

Date of release
1949-01-11
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (9)
Runtime
1h 53m
Genres
Drama
Director
Zheng Jun-li

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 0. Including: Huabiao Award for Outstanding Film

Crows and Sparrows is a 1949 Chinese film made by the left-leaning Kunlun Studios on the eve of the Communist victory, directed by Zheng Junli and scripted by Chen Baichen. Notable for its extremely critical view of corrupt Nationalist bureaucrats, the film was made as Chiang Kai-shek's Nanjing-based government was on the verge of collapse, and was not actually finished and released until after the Chinese Civil War had ended.

Production

Crows and Sparrows was made near the end of the Civil War, when “the outcome of the war was obvious to all”. During this period, as Shanghai was still in control of the Nationalist Party, films and other cultural productions had to go through heavy censorship, often referred to as the “white terror”.

Crows and Sparrows was conceived over dinner by Shanghai Kunlun Film Co., Ltd's Chen Baichen, Shen Fu, Zheng Junli, Chen Yuting, and Zhao Dan, and the script was completed the next day. The Communist Party and the KMT were fighting for the three primary fights in China's political situation in 1948.

A crane shot early in the film reveals the ‘vertical’ relationship among the residents.

Camera pans to show Hou Boyi in uniform from the back.

Use dolly movement to show the old gentleman's popularity.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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