The CCS Film Series film tonight was Street Angel, a black and white movie filmed in 1937 Shanghai, months before the Japanese invasion of World War 2. At times humorous, at times musical, and at times tragic, it was also supposed to be a critique of the social conditions of Shanghai at the time. But honestly, the best thread of the movie was the love story. Xiao Chen (Zhao Dan) and Xiao Hong (Zhou Xuan) are the two "cute" lovers, where she runs away from her adoptive parents to live with Xiao Chen the trumpet player to avoid being sold into a marriage of convenience; Xiao Chen's best friend Lao Wang and Xiao Hong's jie jie also pair up. I wish I could have gotten a screen capture of them together; whereas the first couple seemed much more idealistic and typical of the period, I could actually see Lao Wang and jie jie in a modern day movie—their relationship was not so straight-forward, not so black-and-white. There was actually one scene where they met in the rain... it reminded Helena of a In the Mood For Love, a movie with fantastic settings.

After the movie, Dan, Helena and I met up with Wilson and had dinner at Miki's. Definitely not a FiveDollarMeal, but the sashimi melted in my mouth, and we got to hear a little about the survey work Helena will be working on over the summer. Good company!

I'm embarassed because I told Dan that a certain song from the movie was on the soundtrack for In the Mood For Love but now I see that although there is a song by Zhou Xuan, it's not the one from the movie. However, I did find a web page with clips of classic Mandarin songs, including a sample of the song titled Tian Ya Ge Nü, from the movie we saw tonight.

A script of the movie, with pictures and audio.