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小玩意 (Little Toys)

Director: Sun Yu
Year: 1933
Run-time: 1 hr 46 min
Source: Youtube

Review of Film as well as Bios of its Director and Stars

Notable For: Little Toys is Sun Yu's second film of 1933, with much of the same cast.  Li Lili is wonderful in this film, but the lead is played by Ruan Lingyu, a woman with a much more tragic history, as recalled in the terrific essay linked above.  Here she plays a toy-maker who is competing against foreign factory-made imports.  She makes clever and imaginative games for children while the competition is selling guns and soldiers.  With a very real war with Japan heating up, the distinction is prescient and fascinating to explore in this film.

Verdict: Little Toys is a classic film that I feel has a lot more nuance than Daybreak - unfortunately, the only version I could find is a poorly translated (and synced) version on Youtube with almost no music (the film is silent).  This makes it a pretty difficult watch, which is too bad, as the themes explored here are extremely interesting and relevant even for those who know little about the history of Chinese nationalism.
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