The Spring River Flows East

It is considered one of the most influential and extraordinary Chinese films ever made, and China’s equivalent of Gone with the Wind. With both films based on the story of war and chaos, they contain an epic style considered classics in the film history of both China and the United States. The Hong Kong Film Awards ranked it in its list of greatest Chinese-language films ever made at number 27. It ran continuously in theatres for three months and attracted 712,874 viewers during the period, setting a record in post World War II China. The film features two of the biggest stars of the time: Bai Yang and Shangguan Yunzhu.

The film is over three hours long and consists of two parts, Eight War-Torn Years (八年離亂) and Before and after the Dawn (天亮前後), released in separate dates in the same year, as it first premiered on October 9. It details the trials and tribulations of a family during and immediately after the Second Sino-Japanese War. Part One, Eight War-Torn Years tells the story of the early life and marriage of a young couple, Sufen (Bai Yang) and Zhang Zhongliang (Tao Jin) and the strain produced when the husband is forced to flee to Chongqing, losing contact with the family he leaves behind in wartime Shanghai. Part Two describes Zhang Zhongliang’s return to Shanghai after a second marriage into a wealthy business family among whom by chance his impoverished first wife Sufen has found work as a maid.

Part One, also known as Eight Years of Separation and Chaos, is about 100 minutes in length.

In Shanghai after the 1931 Mukden Incident, Sufen (Bai Yang), is a poor but honest young girl who works at a textile factory. She fancies Zhang Zhongliang (Tao Jin), a teacher giving evening classes to her fellow factory workers. On National Day, the workers put on a show at the factory for their colleagues, with Zhongliang acting as the host. Among the performances the vivacious Wang Lizhen (Shu Xiuwen), the sister-in-law of the factory manager, performs a Spanish dance to much applause. Her performance ends and Zhongliang gets up on the stage and makes a patriotic appeal to the workers. Asking them to donate to the Northeastern Volunteer Army resisting the Japanese invasion of northeast China, the audience throws money on the stage with fervor. However, the factory manager Wen reprimands Zhongliang for inciting the workers, fearing that it will get him into trouble with the Japanese. A disappointed but not discouraged Zhongliang invites Sufen to eat with him at his home, where he lives with his mother (Wu Yin). They solidify their mutual attraction, and as they embrace, he places a ring on her finger while professing his plans for a long and happy future with her. They marry and soon have a son they name Kangsheng (“to resist and to live on”) in honor of the wartime sacrifices made for a better world.

However, the conflict worsens and Zhongliang joins the Red Cross. With the Japanese approaching Shanghai, it results in his medical corps being sent to the frontlines. As they will be separated, Zhongliang tells Sufen and his mother that they should stay in Shanghai. Though he suggests they go back to the countryside to his father and younger brother when things become too dangerous. Meanwhile, the well-connected Miss Wang Lizhen, leaves Shanghai for Hankou to stay with a wealthy trading tycoon, Pang Haogong and his wife after receiving a letter of recommendation from her brother-in-law. The Japanese begin bombing Shanghai and Sufen, with her mother-in-law and the baby, travel to the countryside to live with Zhongliang’s father and younger brother Zhongmin. Zhongmin is a village school teacher by day and a fighter in the guerrilla resistance by night. Hearing that the Japanese are arresting the literate intelligentsia, Zhongmin and three of his friends escape into the mountains where other resistance members are just as the Japanese come to capture them.

Oppression from the Japanese soldiers towards the villagers worsens and they requisition the rice and cattle. They force the villagers to work in the rice fields with no exceptions. The starving villagers beg Zhongliang’s father to use his wisdom and authority to try to convince the Japanese officers to reduce the rice levy so they will have something to eat and be able to work harder. However, the Japanese accuse the old man of inciting the villagers to rebel and they hang him while ordering that his body remain suspended as a warning. That night the guerrilla fighters, led by Zhongmin, blow up the Japanese headquarters, killing the officers, and retrieve his father’s body for burial. To avoid reprisals, the fighters help the villagers escape into the mountains, but send Sufen, her child and her ailing mother-in-law, back to Shanghai by boat.

Meanwhile Hankow also falls to the Japanese and citizens begin evacuation. Wang Lizen evacuates with the Pangs and runs into Zhongliang who also prepares with his corps. She tells him they plan to head for Chongqing and hands him a card containing her address, telling him to contact her should he also end up there. As the war progresses, the Japanese disregard the laws of war and massacre Zhongliang’s medical corps. Zhongliang only survives by feigning death but is later captured and made to do forced labor by the Japanese until a vision of Sufen inspires him to finally make a successful escape. He manages to reach Chongqing, which is still under the control of the Chinese Nationalist government. Corruption there is rampant however, and he is unable to find work of any kind. He sees a notice in the paper that Lizhen has been formally adopted as a goddaughter by Pang Haogong.

Destitute and in rags, Zhongliang decides to show up at her door as a last ditch effort. Lizhen, who lives in luxury, takes him in and convinces her godfather to employ him at his company. Now given clothes, shelter and employment, Zhongliang eagerly prepares for his new job. However, he soon discovers that his new colleagues are idlers who do nothing but drink and party. Though he attempts to remain true to himself, receiving ill news from his family and the uncertain whereabouts of Sufen causes him to be discouraged. Becoming increasingly jaded and demoralized, Zhongliang (formerly a teetotaler) takes to drinking, and gradually allows himself to be seduced by Lizhen. Giving up to the luxury of Chunking, he thinks no more of his wife, son and mother. However, back in Shanghai, Sufen now works during the day in a war refugee camp while taking care of her son and ailing mother-in-law in the evenings. Despite their poor living conditions, she tries her best to support her family, hoping to reunite with her husband soon. Part One ends as a torrential thunderstorm pummels their rugged home.

Part Two: Before and After the Dawn

Part Two is about 92 minutes in length.

The film continues the saga of Zhongliang in Chongqing, where, untouched by the war, business is booming. Zhongliang wakes up next to his new love, Lizhen. The flashbacks show his mental debate about lingering upon his past, but the smile hanging on his face implies his content attitude about the present and intention to lay the past to rest. Lizhen uses her influence to have Zhongliang promoted to be Pang Haogong’s private secretary. She also connives to get Pang Haogong to adopt Zhongliang, as well, which Pang Haogong agrees to if Zhongliang shows his trustworthiness by marrying into the family (入赘 Ru Zhui). Zhongliang, though despairing, nevertheless has vowed to make something of himself. He is introduced into Pang Haogong’s circle of wealthy industrialists, shows talent for wheeling and dealing, and soon makes his mark as an entrepreneur. To welcome his new turning point in life, Zhongliang changes his hairstyle to “more of a bouffant” to match the latest fashion trend in the city which also foreshadows the transformation of his nature.

Back at the NO. 5 refugee center in Shanghai, the impoverished Sufen devotedly takes care of the children and writes letters to conscripted soldiers for their illiterate family members while supporting her mother-in-law and son, now a young boy, until the Japanese decide to dismantle the camp for military purposes. The soldiers force the refugees to live in an open field surrounded by barbed wire and allow them only starvation rations of rice. When one of the prisoners escapes, the others, many of them elderly women, are collectively punished by being made to stand all night in the waist-high, freezing waters of a canal.

Japan surrenders in August 1945. Zhongliang, believing his family to have died, has been adopted by Pang Haogong and has married Lizhen. He and his boss, Pang Haogong, fly back to Shanghai, leaving a reluctant Lizhen to follow them later. In Shanghai, the Nationalists have rounded up and imprisoned wartime collaborators, including Manager Wen. Zhongliang stays at the lavish home of one of Lizhen’s family connections, her cousin, Wenyan (Shangguan Yunzhu). The two become lovers, to the scandal of the servants. Somewhat later Lizhen arrives from Chongqing and tension develops between the two cousins.

Postwar conditions are tough. Sufen cannot afford to pay her rent, buy food, or contact her husband whom she is sure will return, not realizing he has already been in Shanghai for two months. Their son, Kangsheng, is now nine years old and is working in the streets selling newspapers. To her mother-in-law’s consternation, Sufen decides to find work as a maid, a job that her mother-in-law considers beneath people of their status, but it is that or starve. By coincidence Sufen finds work in Wenyan’s household, though she is there for two days before she realizes that her husband is also staying there. The confrontation occurs when Sufen is sent to bring a tray of drinks at a National Day cocktail party. Sufen recognizes Zhongliang, as he is about to dance a tango with Lizhen. She collapses in shock, overturning the tray. Queried by Lizhen, Sufen bursts out that Zhongliang is her husband and that they have been married for ten years and have a son. She recounts her years of suffering, bringing everyone to tears. Everyone except Lizhen and her cousin, who are mortified and accuse Sufen of purposely making them lose face in front of guests. Sufen runs out of the house. While Lizhen retreats to her room where she has a fainting fit, Zhongliang runs to Lizhen’s side. Lizhen, enraged, insists that Zhongliang divorce Sufen. He agrees. He now cares only for his own social position and Lizhen’s welfare, while Lizhen’s cousin Wenyan privately gloats over Lizhen’s comeuppance.

Sufen wanders desolately in the street all night and finally returns home. A letter has come from Zhongliang’s younger brother Zhongmin, announcing his marriage to his childhood sweetheart. He has been fighting in the resistance all this time. They have ousted the governor of the province, and he is happy and teaching in the countryside. Kangsheng is happy and proud of his uncle and he announces he wants Uncle Zhougmin to be his teacher, too. The contrast with her own life is too much; Sufen collapses in sobs and bursts out that she has discovered that Zhongliang is back in Shanghai and is now married to another woman and has forgotten all about them. The grandmother insists on seeing her son right away, and the three of them decide to confront Zhongliang at Wenyan’s mansion.

Mortified and totally disillusioned after a chaotic farce at the mansion, Sufen runs out of the house with her son. At a quay, Sufen claims to be starving and tricks her son into buying a flatbread for her with the intention to not let him witness his mother’s suicide. When Kangsheng comes back, a crowd has gathered, Sufen has drowned herself in the Huangpu River. She has left a note saying that Kangsheng is now a man and from now on he should strive to be like his uncle and not like his father. Kangshen goes to fetch his grandmother and both return to the pier to mourn Sufen. Zhongliang also arrives in a limousine with Lizhen. The grandmother, who seems to bear all the sorrows of China on her shoulders, berates her son, blaming him for Sufen’s death. She brought him up to be a good, conscientious man, she says, but Sufen was more filial and took better care of her than he did. The grandmother lifts her eyes to heaven and asks when will be the end of this endless, endless suffering.