Wild Rose (1932) is one of the earliest leftist films made in Shanghai, starring Wang Renmei and Jin Yan, two prominant actors active in Shanghai cinema of the 1930s. Wang Renmei plays a country girl Xiao Feng, nicknamed 'Wild Rose' for her beauty, health and vigor. Her co-star, Jin Yan, plays a wealthy painter, Jiang Bo. The persistent but ill-fated romance between the two, moving between the countryside, Shanghai's upper-class circle and working-class slum, tells a story of rural and urban difference, class inequality, and the intensification of nationalism amid the colonialist era. Presented by Richard Meyer, Seattle University.
 
 
About the speaker

Richard J. Meyer teaches film at Seattle University. In 2012 and 2013, he was Visiting Scholar at the New Zealand Film Archive. He is also the Edmund F. and Virginia B. Ball Professor of Telecommunications Emeritus at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana and Visiting Professor at the Center for Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Hong Kong.  President Emeritus of The San Francisco Silent Film Festival, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Seattle International Film Festival, Dr. Meyer produces and introduces restored silent films accompanied by music at various "LIVE CINEMA" presentations.

Richard Meyer's biography of Wang Renmei will be on sale at the event, by the Asia Book Room.

This film is part of the monthly film series Asia and the Pacific Screens, sponsored by the Australian Centre on China in the World.