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| Wednesday, 1/25/2012 at Duane Park |
) in Shanghai during the 30s epitomized the beautiful yet dangerous modern girl who enjoyed the exalted status of wealth and fame much like Hollywood stars of our time! There was even a publication called "Crystal"that reported all the minute details of where the more famous hostesses were working at, who their lovers were, and various gossip completely dedicated to Shanghai's nightlife. The cabaret hostess became a figure of that embodied Shanghai's changing political and cultural climate during that war-torn time. Even in this tumultuous environment of multiple wars both civil and national, Shanghai became the hub of several artforms including Chinese cinema and Chinese popular music.Here's an old photograph of cinemas from the 30s in Shanghai from Liangyou magazine another famous nightlife tabloid.
This is very interesting. My friend Miao recently moved back to Shanghai to work for Microsoft. I wonder if any of the old cinemas are still standing. Back in Rahway we had a great old restored movie palace from 1928.
ReplyDeleteI'm fond of Hong Kong cinema (mostly stuff that came out when I was a kid), but I don't really know much about Shanghai cinema, where a quick browsing of Wikipedia points to the pre-World War II era. Apparently the Shaw Brothers started there too, and their studio is older than I thought it was. Of course, my brother Jeffrey is the real expert on Chinese Cinema, his collection puts mine to shame, I should ask him if he has any pre-WWII movies some time.