Zhi guo yuan (1922)

Laborer's Love (Chinese: 劳工之爱情; pinyin: Laogong zhi aiqing) is a 1922 short film produced in China, and premiered October 5, 1922 at the Olympic Theater in Shanghai. It is also known as Romance of a Fruit Peddler or Romance of a Fruit Pedlar (Chinese: 掷果缘; pinyin: Zhi guo yuan) and as "Cheng the Fruit Seller". It constitutes the earliest complete film from China's early cinematic history that survives today. The film was also one of the earliest productions of the soon-to-be prolific Mingxing Film Company and was directed and written by Mingxing co-founders Zhang Shichuan and Zheng Zhengqiu, respectively.

Notably, the film had both Chinese and English intertitles; a clear indication that at this early point in its history, cinema in Shanghai was made not only for the Chinese, but for the many Westerners residing there as well.

In 2007, Australian ensemble Blue Grassy Knoll wrote a new score for Labourer's Love, and performed it live in Shanghai and Beijing as part of the Australian Theatre Festival.

Synopsis

An unemployed carpenter finds temporary work selling fruit from a pushcart. He meets and falls for a doctor's daughter, but her father opposes the relationship due to the young man's humble station, but he will approve a suitor who helps to rescue his failing medical practice. The carpenter restructures the staircase to a gambling club outside the doctor's office so that it collapses whenever anyone walks on it. The resulting number of injured seeking treatment so increases the doctor's income that he gladly accepts the carpenter as his son-in-law.

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