The film The Red Detachment of Women [Photo/Mtime]

4. Children of Troubled Times

Release year: 1935

Producer: August First Film Studio

Plot: The young poet, Xin Baihe, flees Shanghai with his friend Liang. Liang soon joins the resistance against the Japanese invaders, but Xin chooses to pursue a relationship with a glamorous and westernized widow in Qingdao. After hearing that Liang has been killed, however, Xin has a change of heart and rushes to join the war effort.

Social position: The story itself, with its tale of a wealthy man who learns to abandon the decadence of Western culture for self-sacrifice, was a common theme among films of the period.