Outreach
Video Lending Library
China
- Program Title: THE Lin Family Shop
- EASC Code: CL-05
- Series Title:
- Region/Country: China
- Language: Mandarin
- Subtitles: English
- Subject: Movie & TV Drama
- Program Type: Feature
- Media Type: VHS
- Director: Shui Hua
- Producer: Shi Ping and Li Gan
- Release Date: 1959
- Running Time: 84 min.
- Color or BW: Color
- Program Abstract: "The Lin Family Shop is one of the most highly regarded Chinese films of the 1950's recenters praised by English film critics as 'ambitiously conceived and directed' as well as 'completely untypical of the Chinese film industry's production in 1959, the year making the tenth anniversary of Liberation.' The story takes place in a village in Zhejiang Province in 1931, the year the Japanese invaded Manchuria. Students have started a nationwide boycott of Japanese-made products, but Shop-keeper Lin merely relabels his Japanese goods in order to stay in business. Lin must resort to every type of underhanded business practice to keep his shop afloat. When his own daughter is threatened by the amouous advances of the chief of police, Lin decides it is better to give up--he closes down his shop and flees with the girl. But the people who really suffer are those he leaves behind. The poor widows who had entrusted their money to his shop's small bank are left totally destitute. The Lin Family Shop comes alive with the beautiful on-location cinematopgraphy, perfectly evoking in mood and manner a southern Chinese village in the 1930's. Xie Tian, one of the Peking Film Studio's top actors and directors, here gives what is his most highly acclaimed performance as the Shopkeeper Lin."
- Data Entry Date: 2/28/2000
