Shanghai Beach (上海滩, aka The Bund). An epic tale of the 1930s Shanghai underworld, brimming with mobsters, their beautiful lovers, cool music, Godfather riffs, and tragic deaths. It was broadcast on mainland TV in 1985, turning Chow Yun-fat into a god.
They’ve remade it, as we’ve previously noted. The new version, starring Huang Xiaoming as Xu Wenqiang (Chow Yun-fat’s role) with Sun Li as Feng Chengcheng, his love interest (played by Gigi Chiu in the original), is set to premeire in Shanghai on the 28th of this month.
Unfortunately for lovers of the old story, the censors at SARFT have, in their infinite wisdom, determined that the gangland love story contained altogether too much gangland and not enough love story. Reports the Mirror:
The old version of Shanghai Beach contained a large number of scenes that portrayed the struggles of Xu Wenqiang and Ding Li in Shanghai’s underworld; among these, depictions of gangs make up a large portion, so an informed source has revealed that the drama was “bleached” during review by SARFT. A large amount of gang-related plot elements were deleted.
After several rounds of editing, New Shanghai Beach finally passed review, but its entire structure had been significantly altered. The new drama continues the story of Xu Wengqiang and Feng Chengcheng’s love affair, but New Shanghai Beach makes the love affair between Ding Li and Feng Chengcheng a major point as well. The director made additions to Ding Li’s part; not only does he fall in love with Feng Chengcheng in the first episode, but he is portrayed as a model husband who protects Feng Chengcheng to the end even after he is married.
Shanghai’s reputation is safe, thank goodness, but viewers who’d rather indulge their nostalgia for a time when gangs were cool can seek out the widely available DVDs of the original version.
- Mirror (Chinese): SARFT “cleans up”; New Shanghai Beach “bleached”
- Image from Sina