Shang Hai she hui dang an

Less lavish and less inventive than it's companion piece THE COLDEST WINTER IN PEKING, this one's subject still generates interest.

The senior police official refuses to close the case on the girl gang leader who has killed the party official's son. He interviews the her own family and the functionaries who all contributed to her corruption.

The film is unremitting in it's condemnation of Maoist society. The inspectors' findings are suppressed even thirty years after the events. The art direction is more effective than the rather labored script (on the Russian Front the boy comments "I thought socialism knew no frontier") - Drab streets with Mao jacket pedestrians, houses with newspaper covered walls. Violent and not having a great standard of production.

The director and writers of this film primarily uses the actors' dialogue to directly convey the core ideas he wants to convey, lacking any room for audience to think about it by themselves. This makes it seem rather blunt, and many issues are delivered through very blunt slogans, lacking any details.

To some extent, this is a political propaganda film that uses real criminal cases for deep reflection but directly gives the audience the answers through the most straightforward lines.