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天明 (Daybreak)

Director: Sun Yu
Year: 1933
Run-time: 1 hr 36 min
Source: Youtube

Notable For: This is the first Chinese film on the list.  The early 1930's marked the start of China's first cinematic "golden age", with predominantly leftist films dealing explicitly with class struggle and the rise of communism.  The director Sun Yu produced two films in 1933 with mostly the same cast - both were big hits.  The real star here is Li Lili, who portrays a young girl from the country who experiences a series of tramautic events after moving to Shanghai with her boyfriend.  Eventually, she becomes fully independent, and she transforms from a quiet and demure girl into a witty firecracker dedicated to the communist cause.

Verdict:  The film's humanism aligns it more closely to Pudovkin than Eisenstein.  The closest analogue is Jutzi's Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness.  Formally, the film moves a bit too quickly to feel honest, and the propaganda feels artificial, but Li's performance is very strong, and the moments when we sympathize completely with her terror at being alone as she walks the streets of Shanghai at night.  I underestimated this film at first, but it grew on me.

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