Spring in a Small Town

The tone of this 1948 romantic drama, Xiao Cheng zhi Chun, is set by the very title itself. By using the classical “zhi” (pronounced “jr”) to indicate that this spring “belongs” to the small town, director Fei Mu exchanges the normal colloquial language for the literary. The heroine Wei Wei (Zhou Yuwen) is married to a VIP landowner who seems to be suffering from severe depression. World War II has just ended and no one would fault him for his morose temperament. But when a charming doctor comes to visit the family, Wei Wei is thrown into turmoil. She was in love with this doctor before marrying her husband and now he clearly wants her back. Torn between her real love and her duty to her husband, Wei Wei’s dilemma is heightened when her spouse takes a turn for the worse and the doctor has to try to save him., Chinese director Fei Mu’s critically acclaimed drama about a crumbling marriage.