Laborer’s Love

It is also known as Romance of a Fruit Peddler or Romance of a Fruit Pedlar (Chinese: 掷果缘; pinyin: zhì guǒ yuán). Even though filmmaking in China began in the 1890’s, Laborer’s Love is the earliest complete film from China’s early cinematic history that is available today. The film was also one of the earliest productions of the soon-to-be prolific Mingxing Film Company and was directed and written by Mingxing co-founders Zhang Shichuan and Zheng Zhengqiu. Notably, the film has both Chinese and English intertitles, indicating that at this early point in Shanghai cinema history, films were tailored to both Chinese and Western audiences. In addition to the English intertitle cards, the short film further showcased Western influence in Chinese filmmaking, such as taking inspiration from American silent film comedians Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. A subtitled version of the film, which represents differences between the Chinese and English text of the intertitles, is available on YouTube.

His business attracts a lot of attention from neighborhood children and Carpenter Zheng is kept busy by his work, in contrast to the struggling medical clinic across the street. The clinic is run by Doctor Zhu and his daughter Miss Zhu, and a romantic attraction quickly develops between the young woman and Zheng. The platonic duo communicates with each other by connecting the fruit stand to the medical clinic via a string, along which they transport baskets filled with objects back and forth to each other, which is also known as the fruit-throwing connection (Chinese: 掷果缘; pinyin: zhì guǒ yuán). Later, Miss Zhu visits Zheng’s fruit stand and he helps her to get rid of a few local ruffians who have been harassing her. Eventually, Miss Zhu and Zheng fall in love, but Doctor Zhu opposes the relationship because of Zheng’s lower socioeconomic status. However, in the face of his financial hardships, Doctor Zhu agrees to let Zheng marry his daughter if the younger man can help revive his failing medical business. Zheng is dismayed, believing this to be an impossible task, but soon he comes up with the idea to modify the staircase of a gambling club near the doctor’s office. He alters the staircase so that he can transform it into a sliding ramp at will; after this, he merely has to wait for unsuspecting customers to leave the club and promptly slide to the bottom of the staircase, injuring themselves at the bottom. He repeats this numerous times, creating a huge new client base for Doctor Zhu to the point where the old man can barely keep up with the demand, requiring Zheng to step in and provide his services as well. With the medical clinic prospering once again, Doctor Zhu gladly approves the marriage between Miss Zhu and Zheng.