Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall
上海交响乐团演奏厅
shàng h
i jiāo xi
parties - we'll see how long this one lasts).
Local bands play during the week and there
are guest bands from further afield on
weekends. The crowd is young and fashion-
able but not posey, and the acoustics and
layout are excellent. Tickets are usually
around ¥30-50, a beer is ¥15.
Shanghai Stadium
上海体育场
shàng hāi tī yù chāng
666 Tianyaoqiao Lu
T
64266666, ext 2567.
Shanghai Stadium metro.
Venue for mega gigs
by visiting bands such as the Rolling Stones
and Korean superstar Rain as well as home-
grown idols. Tickets are cheaper than they
would be in the West, usually around ¥120.
y n zòu tīng
105 Hunan Lu
T
64372735.
Home to the
Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, who are very
good, if rather conservative in their repertoire.
Rock and pop music
4live
8-10 Jianguo Zhong Lu, off Sinan Lu
T
i ng yuè tuán y
www.4liveunderground.com.
Formerly a mediocre dance club, this place
has reinvented itself as the saviour of live
rock music in Shanghai - and as such is
worthy of support (the last rescuer of Shang-
hai's indie soul ended up hosting pillowfight
74244008,
W
Shanghai cinema
China's first ever moving picture was shown in Shanghai, at a teahouse variety show,
and the nation's first cinema was built here twelve years later. By the 1930s film had
caught on both with the foreign population and with the locals and a number of
studios had opened. Eschewing the formalism and abstractions of Chinese drama,
film-makers, influenced by the May Fourth Movement, sought to make naturalistic
films which challenged imperialism and social conservatism.
One classic from the era, Sister Flower (1933), tells the story of twin sisters
separated at birth, one of whom ends up in Shanghai while the other remains a poor
villager. Spring Silk Worm, from the same year, portrays grim decline in Zhejiang
province, and points the finger at Japanese colonialism. The most celebrated film of
the time was The Goddess (1934), about the struggle of a prostitute to have her son
educated; it features a stand-out performance from the tragic beauty Ruan Lingyu,
China's Garbo, who killed herself a year later.
When the Japanese invaded in 1937 Shanghai's studios were closed, and film-making
talent fled. Despite the turmoil, the Shanghai film-makers made one last great work, the
epic Spring River Flows East, telling the story of a family torn apart by the conflict.
When the Communists took over things didn't get any easier. Officially derided as
bourgeois, they managed to release one privately funded film in The Life of Wu Xun
(1949), the story of a nineteenth-century philanthropist. Mao damned it as revisionist
and closed the studios. From then on Chinese film-makers were only allowed to
shoot dry government propaganda.
All these old classics, and others of the time, can be seen at the Old Film Café (see
p.116), or you can buy them on DVD from the Foreign Language Bookstore (see
p.145) or from the shop in the Shanghai Grand Theatre (see p.130).
Though the studios have yet to return, a new film school has opened and the city has
once more begun to be depicted in contemporary Chinese cinema, most notably in
Lou Ye's tragic love story Suzhou Creek (2002). The inherent theatricality of Shanghai
has been used as an exotic backdrop by foreign film-makers; parts of Mission Impos-
sible III were set here, and Michael Winterbottom filmed sci-fi action flick Code 46 in
Pudong - though neither film is any good, the city comes out looking great.
The decadent prewar days have a perennial appeal to film-makers, it would seem,
providing the setting for the stilted Merchant Ivory boreathon The White Countess
(2004), Steven Spielberg's excellent Empire of the Sun (1987) and Zhang Yimou's
Shanghai Triad (1995), which set the standard for the “lipstick and qipao” genre.
Wong Kar Wai's The Lady of Shanghai, to be released in 2008, looks like being
another worthy addition to that canon.
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