Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases


The Highway (1934)

Director: Sun Yu

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Shot as a late silent but released with music and effects, Sun's classic is pitched as a call for national defence against the Japanese, unnamed for censorship reasons. Six unemployed men leave the city to work as labourers on a new national highway. Sun starts out celebrating their camaraderie on and off the job and their flirtations with two young waitresses. The plot arrives when some of them are imprisoned and tortured by a local warlord in league with 'the enemy'. Sun was the only US-trained director in Shanghai, but his ideas are fresh and irreducibly Chinese. One scene, in which the estimable Li Lili refuses to avert her gaze from the sight of the men bathing naked, clearly derives from Borzage's The River. Otherwise, the main thing Sun picked up from Hollywood movies was his well developed sense of fun.

Author: TR

Time Out Film Guide


What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields




Most popular on this site


Top Stories

Has David Cronenberg turned tame?

Has David Cronenberg turned tame?

Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?

The 10 worst date movies

The 10 worst date movies

Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made

Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films

Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films

Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas

10 unlikely badboy biopics

10 unlikely badboy biopics

Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects

Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'

Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'

The first-time director of the brilliant new thriller discusses religious cults and robot boxing

Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day

Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day

Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing