THE LIN FAMILY SHOP Dir: Shui Hua
1959, 85 minutes (1959)
Starring: Xie Tian , Han Tao , Ma Wei, Yu Lan , and Lin Bin 
The Lin Family Shop is set in a small Zhejiang Province town not too far from Shanghai during the season before Chinese New Year 1931. Following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, there is a nationwide popular boycott of Japanese goods. Shopkeeper Mr. Lin comes under pressure from corrupt local government officials to pay bribes so that he can continue selling Japanese goods relabelled as Chinese goods. The theme of this indictment of the old society before socialism is the power of money to corrupt under capitalism. Adapted by China’s leading screenwriter of the time, Xia Yan, from a novel by the great author Mao Dun, the film is an elegant classic of the era between the 1949 Liberation and the Cultural Revolution that broke out in 1966.
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