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The
Big Road
(1935)

This Chinese comedy-drama was directed by Sun Yu and stars Jin Yan, Chen Yan-Yan and Li-li Li.

It is easy to understand why Li was among the most popular of Chinese actresses in the 1930s. The screen comes alive with her vivacious personality and engaging smile.

Cinema Epoch
2007 DVD edition

The Big Road (1935), black & white, 104 minutes, not rated, with Queen of Sports (1934), black & white, 83 minutes, not rated.

Epoch Entertainment,
no catalog number, UPC 8-91514-00121-4.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 5.4 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 30 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 224 Kbps audio bit rate; Chinese language intertitles, optional English language subtitles with permanent Chinese subtitles (song lyrics); chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $24.98.
Release date: 8 May 2007.
Country of origin: USA •

Ratings (1-10): video: 3 / audio: 3 / additional content: 3 / overall: 3.

This DVD edition has been transferred from a fair to good 16mm reduction print, which is a little dark and closed-up in shadows. There is a significant amount of dust, speckling, schmutz, emulsion scrapes, filmbase scuffing, splices, timing marks and other print flaws seen in the print.

This silent film is partially accompanied by a post-synchronized soundtrack that is primarily sound effects with a few songs, some incidental music that was crudely duplicated by the filmmakers from preexisting recordings, and long gaps of crackling silence during whole sections of the film where (presumably) live music took over the accompaniment. This is probably a prime example of the state of nascent Chinese sound film technology in 1934. Tough going for those with thin skins.

For our notes on the other film on this disc, see our Queen of Sports on home video page.

For now, this is our recommended home video edition of the film.

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