• Friday, Oct 5, 2018

    7 PM (85 mins)
    BAMPFA

    Buy Tickets


The Goddess

(Shennü)

Wu Yonggang
China, 1934

Digital Restoration

  • In Conversation
    Paul Fonoroff

    Paul Fonoroff is an expert on Chinese cinema and author of the new book Chinese Movie Magazines 1921–1951.

  • Peter Zhou

    Peter Zhou is director of the C. V. Starr East Asian Library and assistant university librarian at UC Berkeley.

  • Judith Rosenberg
    On Piano
    Judith Rosenberg
featuring

Ruan Lingyu, Tian Jian, Zhang Zhizhi, Li Keng,

Silent film star Ruan Lingyu delivers one of her greatest, most luminous performances as a mother forced into prostitution in this classic of the Golden Age of Shanghai cinema. Splitting her time between rocking her infant son to sleep and prowling the streets for lecherous men, our virtuous heroine soon falls prey to a portly, violent pimp, who’ll stop at nothing to keep her under his sway. The film’s unblinking gaze at prostitution could make even jaded denizens of pre-Code Hollywood blush, while Ruan’s immortal performance combines the beauty and steel of contemporaries such as Stanwyck, Dietrich, and Harlow.

Jason Sanders_old
FILM DETAILS 

Screenwriter

  • Wu Yonggang

Cinematographer

  • Hong Weilie

Language

  • Silent
  • with Chinese intertitles and English subtitles

Print Info

  • B&W
  • DCP
  • 85 mins

Source

  • China Film Archive