The Grand Shanghai

This article was written on October 11, 2013

Author: Lü Jianfeng

Daqi, promise me one thing. I don't want my husband to know about our past.

Mrs. Cheng, I don't know you at all. What past?

This is a dialogue from the movie 'The Grand Shanghai'. The first line is said by Zhiqiu, a famous Peking Opera actress in the capital, to Daqi, her childhood sweetheart. The second line is Daqi's reply. Facing the woman he has longed for, after a reunion separated by twenty years, hearing these words at the first meeting, Daqi's heart is broken. He can only put aside this extravagant hope and brace himself to deal with the turbulent times of Shanghai.

The eternal themes of war and love are vividly portrayed in this film. It is an era where even thieves have their code and loyalty comes first. There are brothers who face death without flinching, and there are gangsters who refuse to become traitors. These are all brilliant. While the heroic spirit is stirring, tenderness is like water. The most touching part of the whole movie is the emotional entanglement between Daqi and two women.

Zhiqiu, a Peking Opera martial female role from the capital, is famous nationwide and desires a stable family life. But Daqi is in the underworld, the boss of bosses in Shanghai, living a life on the edge. They are destined to have no future. If not for the damn war, perhaps there would have been no later entanglements. On the contrary, Abao, a beauty in troubled times who makes a living by singing on the streets and later dancing, I think she is Daqi's true love.

Abao doesn't want Daqi to be troubled, willingly submits to a villain, and finally dies saving Daqi. She sought love and got it. Daqi, holding the deceased Abao, goes to his death with courage. The movie ends here. I vaguely remember a scene: Abao calls Daqi, hears Peking Opera playing in the background, knows Daqi is thinking of Zhiqiu, and the disappointed Abao says nothing, silently hanging up.