Da lu (1934)
Directed by
Sun Yu
Also Known As:
The Big Road
The Highway (International: English title)
Runtime: 90 min
Country: China
Color: Black and White
Sound Mix: Silent, partially with sound.
Trivia: China's first sound film.
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121180/
Info: http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/CulturalServi ... ilm06.html
This classic features a group of idealistic youths who work together to build roads for China during the early years of the war against Japan. Sun is a master at portraying characters and their relationships through the narrative and metaphoric powers of the image. With superb pacing, he punctuates the story with carefully timed songs and comedy. Passionate, expansive and exciting, this is an epic that entertains.
During the Sino-Japanese War, a group of heroic young men work hard at building a strategic highway for the Chinese army. They are a diverse group--including happy-go-lucky Jin, melancholy Zhang, studious Zheng Jun, light-fingered Han, eternally dreaming Luo--but they always stand up for each other and are highly respected by their fellow workers. Love enters the picture in the form of two enchanting canteen girls, but Japanese spies are determined to find a way to stop the highway's construction--and their machinations bode ill for our high-spirited wild bunch. Obviously a "recruiting poster" for collective effort, THE HIGHWAY transcends the genre, thanks to its remarkable realism and the stand-out personalities of the film's fine young cast.
Sun Yu - The Greatest china Poetic Realism film master, he's called "Poet of cinema".
During a 1982 retrospective of Chinese cinema at Turin, one astonished Italian critic exclaimed, "Neorealism was born in the 30s--in China!" That these remarkable films generated such astonishment shouldn't surprise us, given the rarity of their screening. History may have conspired to keep Chinese cinema of the 30s and 40s largely out of international venues, but the talented filmmakers who produced consistently interesting work during this era never lacked for creative inspiration or ingenuity.
Chinese cinema began in 1905 with Dingjunshan. Two decades later, director Sun Yu was already making films that helped propelled it into the first Golden Age. Born on March 21, 1900 in Chongqing of Sichuan Province, his love of literature had been influenced by his father, a late Qing Dynasty poet and scholar. The May 4th Movement of 1919 had shaped the course of China's modern thinking. Its spirit of anti-feudalism, military aggression, and superstition, with an affirmation on science and democracy has set his future discourse. After studying literature at Beijing's Qinghua University, he enrolled at University of Wisconsin, Columbia University, and New York School of Photography respectively, studying drama, directing, editing, cinematography and other cinematic techniques.
Sun made his directorial debut upon his return to Shanghai in 1926. Though his first two efforts were considered to be average commercial venture, he was keen to introduce new techniques acquired from abroad. It was not until his entry into Lianhua Film Company that his potentials were fully utilized. Critical of China's overwhelming social injustice in the 1930s, he used his films as a vehicle to express his displeasure from an intellectual's conscience, yet always aimed for realism and humanism rather than overtly emotional propaganda. His fresh approach with thorough dramatic structure told with conviction, romantic lyricism, humour and youthful passion had won him much applause and the laurel of "Poet of Cinema" Many of his protagonists, though confronted with unbeatable odds, whether it is a corrupted system or foreign aggression, still hold on to the belief that there will be a brighter future. Despite being denounced in 1951 by Mao for The Life of Wu Xun, Sun was devastated but never gave up and continued making three more films.
At this centennial year of the Chinese cinema with the assistance of China Film Archive, we are proud to present eleven of this poet's opus including some of his rarely seen works made after 1949. Sun Yu passed away on July 11, 1990 at Shanghai and lived just a decade short of the end of the last century. But his films like Daybreak, Wild Rose, The Little One, The Queen of Sport, and especially Big Road will remain forever the epitome of the Golden Age of Chinese Cinema and will be appreciated beyond the expanse of time and territories.
Sun Yu: Poet of Cinema
Note: I'll do a good retrospective of this great master's silent film era, including his only 6 silent films survived, they're Daybreak, Wild Rose, Small Toys, Queen of Sport, Volcano In the Blood and this. You can feel passion, romanticism and realism are amazing interlaced in his films.
As a side note, Nie Er writed two timeless songs for this film, he's one of the best known composer of china, the composer of china national anthem.
Sun.Yu.-.Da.Lu.-.Big.Road.-.Highway.(1934,.china.silent.classic)-SepEnSubs-TVrip.by.(auess).avi 
Sun.Yu.-.Da.Lu.-.Big.Road.-.Highway.(1934,.china.silent.classic)-SepEnSubs.by.(auess).srt 
