Street Angel

This glimpse of the Chinese left wing cinema of the '30s is a true revelation. Maturely assimilating various lessons from Hollywood, it sketches the street life of the poorest quarter of Shanghai just before the city's fall to the Japanese; the main characters are a street musician, a hooker, a newsvendor, and a 'sing-song' girl. Its conclusions are inevitably pessimistic, but both script and performances are warmly humorous; and the attitude to issues like prostitution makes Western cinema of the '60s seem antiquated by comparison.