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the goddess on tcm now. interesting look at pre-communist shanghai if nothing else.
Wu Yonggang made his directorial debut at Lianhua Film Company with The Goddess — or Shennü, which colloquially denotes a prostitute. Ruan Lingyu portrays a young mother forced into prostitution to support her son and provide him with an education. The sympathetic depiction of a streetwalker against the background of a predatory city makes this film surprisingly modern. Revealing the degradation of poverty and the exploitation of poor women, The Goddess criticises the feudal foundations of modern China. Ruan Lingyu brings great humanity to her role. Through emotionally powerful but very naturalistic acting for the time, she elevates the social outcast to the status of heroine. Shanghai was home to some 100 000 prostitutes by the 1930s and the subject regularly found its way onto the screen.