Spring Dream by the Lake

A Shaw Brothers production

Although Hui-Ying is now married to a husband that offers a life of stability and comfort, over ten years ago her first husband (Jia-Hu) fled from Shanghai to Nanyang (old name for Southeast Asia) to escape capture by a warlord - leaving her and their toddler daughter (Shao-Mei) behind in helpless desperation. Despite the mother's emotional attachment to her absent husband, she has never told the daughter about Jia-Hu so the daughter believes the stepfather is her biological father. But the mother begins to have second thoughts about the stepfather when she sees the teen daughter zealously follow the path paved by him - a path that the mother fears will lead to her daughter's moral decline.

The film tells the story of Yang Naifan (Ruan Lingyu) who runs from her arranged marriage to be with her true love, Li Zuyi (Jin Yan). The film details the poverty she must endure for breaking with tradition.

This movie is based on the famous Chinese folklore that is more than one and a half millennium old. The same folklore was what the Disney animation Mulan is based on, and similarly, it was what many Chinese movies/operas/plays based on.

Melodramatic film about a child prodigy.

Based on the famous 18th century Chinese novel with the same name. Set during the 1700s in China, a prominent family loses its good luck when one of the sons loses the jade chip that was embedded in his mouth.

An upper-class son of urbane landowners falls in love with a peasant girl. When a pregnancy results, the couple are kept apart by strict societal morays.

Bai Le De and Hu Lun tung are military cadets. After graduating, Hu Lin Tung is appointed captain of Guangdong headquarters and goes away. Later, Bae Le De is also appointed to a post at the same place. Hu Lun Ting falls in love with Luo Hua, daughter of the local commander.

Diaochan (aka Diau Charn and Sable Cicada), one of the Four Beauties of China, is supposed to be so stunningly lovely that the moon was shamed to hide behind clouds. Despite being the only Beauty among the four who is not a real historical figure but one conjured by storytelling imagination and embellished by public fascination, her story was nonetheless incorporated by author Luo Guangzhong into his popular and influential novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Her tale is one of Machiavellian intrigue, in which she schemes with her godfather Wang Yun to restore moral order to the land, sowing discord between the corrupt Minister Dong Zhuo and his adopted son Lu Bu, a man of martial and military prowess.