Rouge Tears

This 1938 talkie remake of The Goddess offers a chance to see how another leading star, Butterfly Wu (Hue Die), interpreted the role made famous by the late Ruan Lingyu. Rouge Tears was made in Hong Kong under British colonial rule, during the flourishing of the Cantonese film industry at the start of the sound era. “It was precisely under such tumultuous and constantly shifting sociopolitical and technological circumstances that Wu [Yonggang] made his two film attempts (The Goddess and Rouge Tears) to deliver a humanist social expose through the trope of an illegal prostitute roaming Shanghai’s night streets” (Yiman Yang, Remaking Chinese Cinema).