Sort of Shanghai "La Boheme" circa 1937 as four unemployed grads struggle to lands jobs & relations. Zhao works nights as proofreader/reporter and his new annoying neighbor, Yang, works days, so they pester each other with notes while unknowingly keep meeting-cute coming/going to work on the trolley. The first hour is charming, but director Xiling Shen can’t maintain his invention or the confidence of his opening scenes when Zhao contemplates suicide. Technical facilities in Shanghai filming were especially rough with a depression & the on-going Japanese hostilities. Western music is slathered over everything (Wagner, Berlioz, Rossini, though not the expected Puccini), but the real working class locations & the grim, tiny sets reek verisimilitude as does the non-glam cast. The lead male, Dan Zhao is a special find.
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