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''Women Side by Side'' (), also translated as ''Three Women'' and ''Female Fighters'', is a 1949 Chinese film directed by Chen Liting made near the end of the Republic of China era. It is Chen's most famous directorial work.〔 Denounced as a "poisonous weed" during the Cultural Revolution, the film is now considered a Chinese classic.〔 The film is adapted from a play of the same title written by the noted leftist playwright Tian Han, who also wrote the 1932 film ''Three Modern Women''. Tian Han and Chen Liting co-wrote the screenplay. The film tells the story of three women in wartime Shanghai under Japanese occupation: an uneducated factory worker, an intellectual resistance activist, and a bourgeois new woman.〔 In many ways it can be seen as a sequel to Cai Chusheng's 1935 film ''New Women''.〔 Produced by the left-wing Kunlun Film Company, the film has a strong anti-Kuomintang government undertone.〔 ==Plot== The film is set in the Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1944. Jinmei (Shangguan Yunzhu), a textile worker, is raped by two drunken Japanese soldiers on her way home from work. Xinqun (Huang Zongying) and her boyfriend Mengnan (Zhou Feng), who are members of underground resistance, come to her aid and bring her to the home of their friend Ruoying (Sha Li). Ruoying's husband Yuliang (Zhao Dan) had left Shanghai when war broke out in 1937 to join the anti-Japanese resistance, leaving behind his wife and baby daughter Beibei. After years passed without hearing from her husband, Ruoying has married the prosperous banker Zhongyuan (Lan Ma), assuming Yuliang has died. Zhongyuan claims to be politically "unaffiliated". He works with the Japanese but does not inform on his wife's activist friends. Jinmei's husband Yousheng (Zhang Yi) explodes in anger when hearing about her rape. She begs him to kill her. Moreover, Jinmei loses her factory job when her boss finds out about the rape. She becomes a virtual outcast. Neighbourhood hooligans taunt Jinmei and her husband, who gets in a fight with them and loses his eyesight when they pour chemicals on his face. To support the family, Jinmei turns to loan sharks and is forced into prostitution. Yuliang abruptly returns to Shanghai. Ruoying meets him at Xinqun and Mengnan's apartment. She explains that to survive in war time she has had no choice but live with the banker, although she still loves Yuliang. Yuliang retorts that her suffering is nothing compared to the that of the war refugees in the front. Japanese operatives burst into the room and arrest the couple, mistaking them for Xinqun and Mengnan. Mengnan flees Shanghai but Xinqun stays behind. Yuliang and Ruoying are tortured in the Japanese prison. Xinqun finds Zhongyuan and asks him to prove his patriotism and use his Japanese connection to secure the release of Yuliang and Ruoying. He agrees, even though the release of Yuliang would ruin his own marriage. He speaks to his Japanese friends, who ask him to help them run a new propagandist publishing house. Zhongyuan agrees, thus becoming for the first time an overt collaborator with the Japanese, ironically to prove to Xinqun that he is a patriot. The Japanese release Yuliang and Ruoying after Zhongyuan's effort. In a twist, on the opening day of the publishing house, Yuliang throws a bomb into its window, injuring Zhongyuan. Yuliang is forced to flee Shanghai to evade the ensuing manhunt. Beibei, the young daughter, chooses to leave Ruoying and go with her father. Ruoying, devastated by the departure of Beibei and Zhongyuan's collaboration with the Japanese, further discovers that Zhongyuan has had a mistress who also sleeps with the Japanese. She decides to end her life and leaves a suicide note for Xinqun. She walks to the Huangpu River, where she unexpectedly finds Jinmei, who has attempted suicide but has been pulled from the river by passers-by. Her husband had found out about her prostitution, and kicked her out of the house. Ruoying abandons her suicide plan. Xinqun finds Ruoying and Jinmei and brings them to her girls' school, where she tells her students about the story of the two women. In the last scene, Jinmei's husband arrives at the school and "forgives" her for the rape and prostitution. (In the original stage play, it is Yuliang who returns and reunites with Ruoying).〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Women Side by Side」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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