Product Details

• Actors: Dan Zhao, Yinyan Wu, Daolin Sun, Yunzhu Shangguan, Heling Wei
• Directors: Junli Zheng
• Format: NTSC
• Region: All Regions
• Studio: Guangzhou Beauty Culture Communication Co.Ltd
• DVD Release Date: December 1, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000LP504A
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #180,035 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Crow and Sparrow" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable Commie Agitprop, July 24, 2004

By 

avoraciousreader (Somewhere in the Space Time Continuum) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crows & Sparrows [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Made in 1949 as the Nationalist forces were on the verge of being driven from mainland China by Mao and the Communists, this film, while not too overtly pro-Communist (although there are slogans such as 'The New Year is here, and a New Society with it!'), is decidedly anti-Nationalist. (From other internet comments, it seems it was actually made under Nationalist control, with a tamed down script submitted to the censorship board.)

The film centers around an apartment house in Shanghai and the several families and singles who live there. On the top floor are the Hous, a martinet Nationalist officer and his smug, scheming wife, depicted as purely evil. Hou was a collaborator during the Japanese occupation, yet found favor with the Nationalists afterward. With the communists descending on the city, he and other Nationalists in the city are depicted as being occupied solely with gathering as much profit as possible, through intimidation or fraud, to flee with, rather than any military resistance. Hou is using his position to purchase vast amounts of grain with government money, planning to sell it for private profit when panic hits and people are desperate. They 'own' the house, having commandeered it from Mr. Kong, a gentle and elderly proofreader who now lives alone in a single room. To make sure we totally despise Hou, he is trying to seduce Mrs. Hua. Mrs. Hou (or perhaps simply a mistress) could give Lady Macbeth a race for title of 'most evil woman', smiling and scheming, richly dressed with an artificial prettiness, taking smug pleasure in the misfortune of others and the exercise of petty power. To milk a final few ounces of gold out of the country before leaving, the Hous are trying to sell 'their' house, and to evict the others beforehand. Their servant Ah Mei, a simple and virtuous farm girl, fraternizes with, and is sympathetic to, the other residents.

Mr. Hua is an impractical scholar, teaching at a local school. His wife is naturally attractive, the practical cement that holds the family and finances together and takes care of their child WeiWei. Hua is tangled up with the radical politics of several younger teachers, sympathetic yet fearful for his position. Mrs. Hua is negotiating to stay on as the 'responsible' family among the tenants, fending off broad hints by Hou that he could help relieve her loneliness while her husband spends long hours at school.

WeiWei is stricken with pneumonia, saved only when Ah Mei steals some rare penicillin from the Hous, who had received it as collateral on a loan to the Xiao's, who are the other family (with several children) in the building. The Xiaos earn their living as street vendors of American goods, constantly obsessing with price and inventory. They are negotiating with the Hous to buy the house, but need to put through a scheme of buying gold (using that borrowed money) at official rates and reselling on the black market. Their mercenary plots allow the film to highlight the rampant inflation of the moment. There is one other single tenant, 'Little Broadcast' named for his habit of loudly broadcasting his thoughts and information.

Each family has its own dramas, yet the center of the film is their joint effort to prevent evictions, while at the same time several are scheming against the others for the Hous' favor so they individually may stay. In the end, the evil Hous are driven away, as tiny sparrows can band together to drive away a predatory crow.

As to production values, the film is similar to American films of 1930's or early 40's, though more complex in script than most. The emphasis, however, is the lives of the common people, rather than the escapism of the wealthy lives featured in US Depression era movies. The acting is excellent, portraying the varied characters with sensitivity and humor. The film copy and video transfer is probably as good as can be expected short of remastering, and the subtitles are clearly displayed on a translucent strip which isolates them from the white-on-white horror, yet allows enough of the underlying picture to show through for continuity, to me the ideal compromise between readability and overly harsh contrast. More film and video producers [hint: this means you, Criterion] should adopt this technology.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than entertainment, more than history -- two "back stories" make it poignant, November 30, 2011

By 

Donald M. Bishop (Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crow and Sparrow (DVD)

There are many reasons to like this movie set in a Shanghai boarding house as the Communist armies approached the city in 1948.

-- You can read about the Chinese civil war in a dry textbook. "Crows and Sparrows" fills in the history with views from a lane in Shanghai -- inflation, housing shortages, corruption, arrests, and so on.
-- Zhao Dan gave a fine humorous performance.
-- A subplot involving black market penicillin nicely showcased true character in hazardous times.
-- The home's occupants show different personality types -- venal, enterprising, naive, timid.
-- Economists will want to tease out lessons from the arbitrage between official and black market exchange rates.
-- In general, the story line reflects the fatigue of the Kuomintang regime and ordinary people's hopes that a Communist victory would turn a new page for China. That their hopes would be cruelly dashed within a few years does not falsify the film's images of hopefulness, seen in a final gathering of the home's residents for Chinese New Year, and in a proverb.

Two back stories make the movie more poignant today. The first: Zheng Pengli began making the film when the KMT still controlled Shanghai. Left wing in his beliefs, Zheng had written out a parallel script that would celebrate the coming Communist victory. Shooting the scenes for the final version while the KMT still controlled Shanghai required some clever subterfuge.

The second back story is what happened to director Zheng Pengli. His film anticipated and welcomed the Communist victory in the Civil War, but Zheng was ultimately persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and died in 1969. The Revolution ate one of its own.

My imagination also turns to a sequel. What would have happened to the characters after the end of the film in 1948? The corrupt KMT official, "Mr. Hou," and his wife would have escaped to Taiwan. For the others, they might have suffered the same fate as Zheng Pengli. They welcomed the prospect of a new China, but Zhao Dan and his wife would have soon been persecuted as former black marketeers, the innocent maid A-mei would have been persecuted for working for KMT officials, and even the timid schoolteacher who finally came out for the revolution, Mr. Hua, would be persecuted for his education.

The Chinese film "Shanghai Rumba" (2006) recreated the making of "Crows and Sparrows." When it eventually comes out on DVD, you'll want to watch the new film to see some of Zheng Pengli's ingenious camera techniques.

-30-

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not Subtitled, February 26, 2009

By 

W. S. Uemura (Salt Lake City, UT) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Crow and Sparrow (DVD)

While the quality of the movie is about what one could expect from a film of that era without having had careful archival processes, the key problem for non-Chinese speaking audiences was that the movie is not subtitled. The main menu offers three choices - as far as I can tell - play movie, return, and scene selection. Nothing that one can select gives you the option of language or subtitle, let alone other settings. Having read a previous review that talked specifically about the subtitles, I had selected this for a film class but then had to switch it out. I suspect that Amazon may have gotten the wrong batch and did not know about it. The film is supposed to be one of the more interesting ones from the era (some of which was actually filmed prior to the revolution and subject to GMD censorship). But non-Chinese speakers should beware that they will not be able to understand the film.