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\tStreet Angel ( \u9a6c\u8def\u5929\u4f7f; M\u01celù ti\u0101nsh\u01d0) is a Chinese film released in 1937. The film was directed by Yuan Muzhi and stars the popular singer Zhou Xuan. This dark comedy—a still hilarious and irresistible love story—may not seem like a milestone, but “Street Angel” (\u300a\u9a6c\u8def\u5929\u4f7f\u300b M\u01celù Ti\u0101nsh\u01d0) was the first Chinese movie not about high society. For the first time, it gave voice to Shanghai’s laboring classes. It was produced in 1937, and tells the story of a pair of sisters, Little Yun and Little Hong, refugees from the Japanese invasion of Northern China, who’ve migrated to Shanghai to start life anew.<\/p>\n
\tThe city doesn’t greet them well. To pay the rent, the older sister is forced into a life of prostitution. The younger sister, being groomed for the streets, reluctantly sings in a low-brow teahouse to the snickers of drunken, lecherous customers. We know—it doesn’t sound like much of a comedy.<\/p>\n
\tThrough indomitable optimism and can-do spirit, they befriend a motley crew of misfits and social dregs—Little Chen the trumpeter, Old Wang the newspaper hawker, a street peddler, a barber and a dwarf—and strive together to fight for a better tomorrow. ?Shanghai, the city, swings along to the beat of trumpet blasts and newspaper delivery boys. The film opens with a dazzling barrage of shots of nightclubs and parties, but it’s the everyday things—the street merchants, the dangling birdcages, the kindhearted beggars, and the marketplaces filled with old men brushing their teeth—that bring the city, and movie, to life. Tying it all together are bouts of odd, slapstick comedy.<\/p>\n
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