The Spring River Flows East

The film is set in China during the war years. The account comes in two parts. The first part is called Eight War-Torn Years. The village of a poor family falls to the Japanese army. Zhang Zhongliang leaves his wife and young son behind. He joins a medical unit with the army. His wife Sufen stays behind. The years pass in hardship. Zhongliang meanwhile builds a new life in Chongqing. He marries into a wealthy family. The second part is called The Dawn. Zhongliang returns to Shanghai. There he comes across Sufen, who has been left destitute. That meeting undoes everything he has built. Bai Yang plays Sufen and Tao Jin plays Zhongliang in Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli’s hundred and ninety two minute Chinese film of 1947.