Shanghai: The Roaring 20's

A richly researched plunge into a glamorous, dangerous lost city, mixing archive material and reenactment into a sober, fascinating history lesson.

Directed by

Anne Riegel, Olivier Horn

Genres

Documentary

Starring

Serge Avédikian, Dominique Reymond

Overview

Shanghai in the 30s: money rules in this city open to all adventures and whose reputation attracts all the bold adventurers of the world. Albert Londres, one of the most famous journalists of the time, who is in Shanghai in 1924 reports to his newspaper. In 1932, the city is plunged into an armed conflict triggered by Japan, served as a curtain raiser for a new dispensation. Following the lashing rise of Du Yuesheng in Shanghai, the godfather of the Green Gang, we embark on an exploration of the period when bankers and drug traffickers, revolutionaries and nationalists made history. Unpublished Chinese archive materials, private archives, old feature films, period newspapers, police reports, diplomatic correspondence, journalism by Albert Londres and explorations of present-day Shanghai, sketch the portrait of a world that continues to fascinate the West.

How it feels

Dark, earnest, melancholic and tense. Measured and needs your attention.

About

Crime, corruption, power, war

Content

Mild violence, gore, sexual content and language.

Note

Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown

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