The Lin family shop = Linjia puzi [NTSC]

At the centre of the story is a small-time merchant’s struggle for financial survival in a provincial town in the early 1930s. The novel by Yuan Chu and Mao Tun from which it was adapted came out of the May 4th Movement and has been described as ‘a lament for the patriotic bourgeoisie suffering from economic hardship of foreign competition’. Literature from this politically radical and western influenced movement became the subject of popularisation on the screen in the 1950s (see also Early Spring). Most pre-1949 filmmakers had been part of this cultural strain (see Street Angel). ‘The Lin Family Shop’ is regarded as the best of such fifties adaptations. The period is carefully evoked but the filmmakers were aware of the need to prevent audience identification with the shopkeeper who remains an understandable (if hardly sympathetic) figure. A narrator at the end provides the ‘right perspective’. Cast includes Wei Wei, Hsieh Tien, Han Tao. In Mandarin with English subtitles.