Two Stage Sisters 4K 1964 CHINESE

Jin Xie's "Two Sisters," like a beautiful Bollywood epic, has something for everyone - sympathetic heroines, evil capitalists, great music, Hollywood-style melodrama and revolutionary fervor. Set in pre-revolutionary China, the film is a tragic melodrama with strong political undertones. Despite its revolutionary spirit, the film was banned after its debut for "bourgeois humanism," allegedly because the reactionary Sister seemed too sympathetic. The director himself was imprisoned at the beginning of the "Cultural Revolution."

In Two Sisters, a runaway peasant girl, Zhu Chunhua (Fang Xie), enters an opera troupe and meets Xing Yuehong (Indy Cao) and her kindly father, Master Xing. When her father dies, the two actresses travel to Shanghai and perform in the Shaoxing Opera, displacing the former singer, Madam Shan (Yunzhu Shangguan), who feels bitter and resentful toward the manager, Master Tang. Yuehong and Chunhua become close friends, but it is obvious that they are headed in different directions. Chunhua meets a revolutionary who talks about how women are exploited and oppressed, making sure to point out that not only the bosses are to blame, but also their bosses and, in addition, the Americans.

Chunhua attends political meetings and takes part in the revolution, while Yuehong marries Master Tang and lives in style--wearing Western clothes, high heels, elaborate headdresses, and makeup. When Chunhua refuses to stop the performance, which her superiors object to, she is attacked and finds herself face-to-face in court with Yuehong, who is forced to testify against her, setting the stage for a dramatic climax. Powerful and gripping, Two Sisters from the Stage is an important film and a rare treat for the senses.