# Crossroads (十字街头) (1937 film)
**Crossroads** (十字街头, *Shizi jietou*) is a 1937 Chinese black-and-white comedy-drama directed and written by Shen Xiling (沈西苓) and produced by the Mingxing Film Company in Shanghai[1](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/au-carrefour/). It follows four unemployed university graduates in 1930s Shanghai and the romance between Old Zhao (Zhao Dan) and Miss Yang (Bai Yang), neighbors separated by a thin wooden wall who fall in love without knowing they live next door to each other[2](https://www.virtualshanghai.net/films/collection?ID=114). The film is considered a classic of the first golden age of Chinese cinema[3](https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/nationalcinemas/chinese).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | 十字街头 (*Shizi jietou*), English title Crossroads[1](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/au-carrefour/) |
| Director and writer | Shen Xiling, who also drew on his own experience of unemployment[1](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/au-carrefour/) • [4](https://chinesefilmdatabase.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/232-shizi-jietou-crossroads/) |
| Production | Mingxing Film Company, Shanghai, 1937; 2,972 meters[5](https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark%3A/67531/metadc278723/m2/1/high_res_d/1002660135-he.pdf) |
| Release | 15 April 1937, at the Jincheng Grand Theatre (金城大戏院) in Shanghai[6](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/356464/) |
| Principal cast | Zhao Dan, Bai Yang, Lu Ban, Ying Yin, Sha Meng, Yi Ming, Wu Yin[7](https://www.zgbk.com/ecph/words?Name=%E3%80%8A%E5%8D%81%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%97%E5%A4%B4%E3%80%8B&SiteID=1&SourceID=91700&Type=bkzyb&subSourceType=000003000013000002) |
| Format | Black and white, Mandarin, aspect ratio 1.33:1[8](https://www.cfa.org.cn/cfa/gz/dymlcx/dy/2023060216212151267/index.html) |
| Running time | Reported as 110 minutes by 1905.com and Virtual Shanghai, 108 minutes by the China Film Archive, and 104 minutes by the Festival des 3 Continents[6](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/356464/) • [8](https://www.cfa.org.cn/cfa/gz/dymlcx/dy/2023060216212151267/index.html) • [1](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/au-carrefour/) |
| Legacy | Remade in Hong Kong in 1955 as a Cantonese light comedy directed by Mok Hong-si[9](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/pe-event-2022-fyf-fs-film06.html) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The story centers on four young men who have finished university in Shanghai and cannot find work[2](https://www.virtualshanghai.net/films/collection?ID=114). Their paths diverge according to temperament. Liu Dage (Sha Meng), resolute and haunted by the lost northeastern homeland, leaves to join the resistance. Xiao Xu ([Yi Ming](https://www.edgepedia.org/yi-ming)), despondent, attempts suicide; Old Zhao saves him, and Xu later sells his university diploma and returns home. A'tang ([Lu Ban](https://www.edgepedia.org/lu-ban)), an optimist trained in art, finds work decorating shop windows, while Zhao takes a job as a proofreader at a newspaper[8](https://www.cfa.org.cn/cfa/gz/dymlcx/dy/2023060216212151267/index.html).
**The romance.** Zhao lives in a shabby rented room divided from the room behind by a flimsy plank wall. Miss Yang (Yang Zhiying, played by Bai Yang), a young woman who has come to the city for a factory job, moves in behind it; her nails hammered into the wall knock down Zhao's photographs, and the unseen neighbors begin a tit-for-tat feud[2](https://www.virtualshanghai.net/films/collection?ID=114). Because their work hours do not overlap, neither knows who lives on the other side of the partition[10](https://tw.18dao.net/%E5%BD%B1%E8%A6%96%E8%B3%87%E6%96%99/%E5%8D%81%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%97%E9%A0%AD_%281937%29). They meet by chance on the tram and begin to flirt, each unaware of the other's domestic identity[11](https://lvcinemaassociation.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CROSSROADS-DVD-review-for-LVCA-website.pdf). When a hoodlum harasses Yang outside her factory, Zhao and A'tang drive him off, and Zhao and Yang fall in love[8](https://www.cfa.org.cn/cfa/gz/dymlcx/dy/2023060216212151267/index.html). Zhao, assigned to report on labor conditions, writes a series titled "The Misery of Women Workers" based on her factory[12](https://www.mifang.org/yl/cq/p73.html).
**The ending.** Shanghai's economic crisis closes Yang's factory and costs Zhao his job. Newspapers carry news of Xu's suicide and of Liu fighting at the front. Friends bring Yang back, and the four walk together toward the front[8](https://www.cfa.org.cn/cfa/gz/dymlcx/dy/2023060216212151267/index.html).
## Production
Shen Xiling conceived the film in 1936, after returning to Shanghai from the south at age 32. He spent time with young artists of the "Xindi Drama Society," including Sha Meng and Lu Ban, refugees from the northeast, and wanted to dramatize the contradictory feelings of educated youth of the day: patriotic fervor for national salvation combined with the pain of unemployment and the resulting aimlessness, which gave the film its title[6](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/356464/). Shen put his own experiences into the script; like A'tang, he had once earned money decorating shop windows, and he had lived in the kind of poor neighborhood depicted in the film[6](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/356464/).
The screenplay was written by Shen with Ling He and Chen Wu and revised and polished by [Xia Yan](https://www.edgepedia.org/xia-yan)[6](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/356464/). Photography was credited to Zhou Shimu and Wang Yuru, editing to Qian Xiaozhang, art direction to Yang Jingxin, and music and lyrics to He Luting[5](https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark%3A/67531/metadc278723/m2/1/high_res_d/1002660135-he.pdf). The inserted song "In Spring" (春天里) was composed by He Luting, with lyrics by the poet [Guan Lu](https://www.edgepedia.org/guan-lu)[6](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/356464/).
**Censorship.** The film's path to release was obstructed at every stage. The script was cut by the film inspection authorities before shooting; after completion, the authorities of the foreign concessions made repeated cuts, removing meaningful shots and dialogue. Shen lamented that in the concessions his team could not speak a single line about recovering lost territory or even hang a map of the northeast[6](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/356464/). Despite the cuts, the premiere caused a sensation, and *Shen Bao* devoted a full red-headed front page to large photographs of Zhao Dan and Bai Yang[6](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/356464/).
## Style and influences
The film blends Hollywood romantic comedy with Chinese social realism. The plot of two people who meet by chance, fall in love, nearly lose each other, and discover they have been neighbors all along was already familiar from Hollywood pictures such as Paul Fejos's *Lonesome* (1928)[13](https://www.scmp.com/article/711066/film-1937). A DVD review notes that much of the humor follows the romantic comedies of [Harold Lloyd](https://www.edgepedia.org/harold-lloyd) and that the plot pivot derives from [Frank Capra](https://www.edgepedia.org/frank-capra)'s *It Happened One Night*, transferred ably to a Chinese setting[11](https://lvcinemaassociation.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CROSSROADS-DVD-review-for-LVCA-website.pdf). The scholar Ling Zhang of the University of Chicago analyzes the film as an example of Shen's transcultural practice, in which 1930s Chinese filmmakers reinterpreted Hollywood and Soviet visual conventions to develop their own narrative and formal style[14](https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol15/iss2/16/).
The film's realism is anchored in its setting. Location shooting on the streets of Shanghai was used whenever possible, and brief documentary sequences heighten the sense of contemporary relevance[4](https://chinesefilmdatabase.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/232-shizi-jietou-crossroads/). The reviewer for the Las Vegas Cinema Association describes a fast, Western-inflected visual style: montages of newsprint tumbling off the presses, an opening credit sequence of upthrusting Shanghai skyscrapers, diagonal dissolves, double-exposure dream images, and frequent wipes[11](https://lvcinemaassociation.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CROSSROADS-DVD-review-for-LVCA-website.pdf).
## Reception and legacy
The film is regarded as one of the classics of 1930s Chinese cinema, named alongside Yuan Muzhi's *[Street Angel](https://www.edgepedia.org/street-angel-1937-film)* (1937) as a classic of the period[3](https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/nationalcinemas/chinese). The Chinese Film Database calls it a funny, inventive [Depression](https://www.edgepedia.org/depression) comedy whose realism and hints of looming political turmoil are purely Chinese, and notes that it marked the emergence of Zhao Dan and Bai Yang as major stars[4](https://chinesefilmdatabase.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/232-shizi-jietou-crossroads/). Paul Fonoroff, writing in the *South China Morning Post* in 2010, called it one of Chinese cinema's most highly regarded pre-war classics and credited Shen with a balance of topical immediacy and star glamour that makes the film equal parts love story and political statement; Bai Yang was 17 years old in the role that made her a star[13](https://www.scmp.com/article/711066/film-1937). (A DVD review gives her age as 16[11](https://lvcinemaassociation.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CROSSROADS-DVD-review-for-LVCA-website.pdf).)
Shen Xiling's promising career was cut short by his early death in wartime [Chongqing](https://www.edgepedia.org/chongqing) in 1940[4](https://chinesefilmdatabase.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/232-shizi-jietou-crossroads/). The Festival des 3 Continents notes that he died at a very young age and describes *Crossroads* as his first and only film in this style of bittersweet comedy, praising the audacity with which he shifts scenes from one tone to another[1](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/au-carrefour/).
The film crossed into Hong Kong cinema. In 1955 director Mok Hong-si and writer Lo Yu-kei remade it as a [Cantonese](https://www.edgepedia.org/cantonese) light comedy for the Bailaohui studio, moving the setting from war-torn Shanghai to postwar Hong Kong, adding a subplot of bickering lovers played by Cheng Bik-ying and Tang Kei-chen, and loading the story with social satire[9](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/pe-event-2022-fyf-fs-film06.html).
## References
1. [Crossroads (Shizi jieotu), Festival des 3 Continents](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/au-carrefour/)
2. [十字街头 — Crossroads — Shi zi jie tou, Virtual Shanghai](https://www.virtualshanghai.net/films/collection?ID=114)
3. [Chinese cinema, Film Studies Research Guide, Dartmouth College](https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/nationalcinemas/chinese)
4. [232. Shizi jietou / Crossroads, Chinese Film Database](https://chinesefilmdatabase.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/232-shizi-jietou-crossroads/)
5. [The credits of Crossroads and Street Angel, in Chinese Film: Realism and Convention from the Silent Era to the Digital Age, UNT Digital Library](https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark%3A/67531/metadc278723/m2/1/high_res_d/1002660135-he.pdf)
6. [十字街头 Crossroads (1937), 1905电影网](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/356464/)
7. [《十字街头》, 中国大百科全书 (Encyclopedia of China Publishing House)](https://www.zgbk.com/ecph/words?Name=%E3%80%8A%E5%8D%81%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%97%E5%A4%B4%E3%80%8B&SiteID=1&SourceID=91700&Type=bkzyb&subSourceType=000003000013000002)
8. [十字街头, 中国电影资料馆 (China Film Archive)](https://www.cfa.org.cn/cfa/gz/dymlcx/dy/2023060216212151267/index.html)
9. [Crossroads (1955), Hong Kong Film Archive](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en/web/hkfa/pe-event-2022-fyf-fs-film06.html)
10. [影視資料/十字街頭 (1937), Tw.18dao.net](https://tw.18dao.net/%E5%BD%B1%E8%A6%96%E8%B3%87%E6%96%99/%E5%8D%81%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%97%E9%A0%AD_%281937%29)
11. [Shi Zi Jie Tou (Crossroads), China 1937, DVD review, Las Vegas Cinema Association](https://lvcinemaassociation.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CROSSROADS-DVD-review-for-LVCA-website.pdf)
12. [十字街头－电影简介－中国电影名片, mifang.org](https://www.mifang.org/yl/cq/p73.html)
13. [FILM (1937), Paul Fonoroff, South China Morning Post, 11 April 2010](https://www.scmp.com/article/711066/film-1937)
14. [Zhang, Ling. "Shen and Cinema in 1930s Shanghai." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 15.2 (2013)](https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol15/iss2/16/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedy-drama films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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