Fei Mu's 1948 masterpiece, regularly named the greatest Chinese film
ever made. In a ruined house in a war-scarred provincial town,
Zhou Yuwen (Wei Wei) cares for her invalid husband while drifting
through a marriage emptied of love — until Zhang Zhichen (Shi Yu),
her husband's old friend and her own first love, arrives as a
visiting doctor. What follows is almost unbearably restrained:
long walks on the ruined city wall, glances held a beat too long,
and a narration that confesses what the characters cannot say. Fei
Mu films adulterous longing without a single transgressive act, and
the result influenced generations of Chinese-language cinema. Made
on the eve of revolution and rediscovered decades later, the film is
in the public domain.
Drama · Romance
