Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageAlong the Sungari River (1947)
Director: Jin Shan
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Made in very tough conditions in a Changchun studio just liberated from the Japanese, this was the pioneering attempt to dramatise Japan's invasion and annexation of Manchuria in the 1930s. Zhang Ruifang (later an iconic battleaxe in communist propaganda movies) plays a young village girl who takes to the road with her fiancé (Wang) after the Japanese have killed both her parents. The boy takes a job in a Japanese-run mine and leads the protests when it collapses in a flood. Both of them end up fighting as guerillas with the resistance. No dramatic or political surprises, but the performances are down to earth and the visuals are remarkable - much of it has the startling, pantheistic poetry once unique to Dovzhenko. A knockout debut for actor Jin Shan, who ran foul of the post-1949 government and was allowed to direct only three more features in the 1950s.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Jin Shan
Producer: Sheng Jialun, Guan Zhibin
Cast: Wang Renlu, Zhang Ruifang, Zhou Diao, Pu Ke, Yi Ping, Zhu Wenshun, Chen Zhenzhong full cast
Genre(s): War
Duration: 112 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Review: Penélope Cruz more raunchy than ever in 'Nine'
Dave Calhoun reports on Rob Marshall's Oscar-touted musical with Daniel Day-Lewis playing a troubled director
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Jim Jarmusch on 'The Limits of Control'
Jim Jarmusch has followed ‘Broken Flowers’ with an esoteric crime mystery. Dave Calhoun speaks to him from his New York office
Richard Linklater on 'Me and Orson Welles'
Dave Calhoun meets the 49-year-old, Houston-born filmmaker Richard Linklater to discuss his new comedy
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now