User Reviews

A silent epic, starting with a traditional China in the 1920s, where a gifted woman, Ye (Lingyu Ruan) invents and makes toys. She has a circle of people in her village, her pudgy, slow husband who sells the toys, as does the scarecrow Mantis. In the opening scene her husband, daughter, and infant son tiptoe, and the little dog wears felt booties, so she can sleep. Clearly Sister Ye is treasured—and she's also admired by a rich, handsome man, Yuan Pu (Congmei Yuan), but she sends him away to learn how to manufacture things so China won't keep buying imports. Over the years, things degenerate even though Sister Ye keeps making brilliant toys. Her husband falls down and dies in the market, and in the stir that ensues, somebody steals her young son and sells him to a woman in Shanghai. War comes and Sister Ye's circle leave the village. They settle in Shanghai and continue to make toys, but their standard of living keeps falling. Sister Ye's daughter Pearl (Li Li-li) grows up to be another toy-making genius, as well as an inspiring leader of children's calisthenics. Yuan returns but can't find Sister Ye; he builds the toy factory he'd promised her, and meets the woman who adopted Ye's son—though nobody ever knows the connection. War gets far worse—the Japanese invade Manchuria, and there is much brutal destruction. Japanese planes bomb the hospital where Sister Ye and Pearl are helping, and Pearl dies in her mother's arms. Finally Sister Ye is reduced to rags, selling a pole of toys outside a fancy night-club. Out of a limousine comes her son, a boy scout, and she refuses to take money from him because he says he intends to grow up to save his country. Sister Ye smiles with tears in her eyes—and then the fireworks start going off and she cracks with the strain, running about screaming that war has come again. Yuan finds her and calms her a little, and she gradually works around to a profoundly patriotic speech, calling on everybody to serve, pointing at them, and pointing at the camera at the very end. The war-time propaganda starts about half-way through the movie, and escalates through Pearl's cheerfully rousing patriotism to this final speech—from which (in the print I saw) both the Chinese inter-titles and the English subtitles were missing, though plentiful earlier. I seem to have become a big fan of Lingyu Ruan, whose face I admire prodigiously—she's really very beautiful, with a dazzling smile that transforms her face and her eyes into something very fine to behold. And she's a very good actor as well, especially expressive. The movie harnesses tragedy to serve national interests.

Small Toys tells the story of a gifted artisan toy maker, played by Ruan Lingyu, who crafts small toys from clay and bamboo that her husband then sells in a nearby town. Ye's daughter, after the story moves forward ten years to 1931, is played by Li Lili, another famous actress in both silent and sound films. It is perhaps not the best film of either of these great Chinese actresses, but like many films from the period, are important for historical reasons as well as for mere entertainment value.

SPOILERS AHEAD Many catastrophes then strike one after the other: Ye's husband dies and her little son disappears, warlords destroy the village, cheap modern toys begin to outsell the handmade works Ye and her equally gifted daughter create. The family move then to the outskirts of Shanghai and the story moves forward ten years. In 1932, the Japanese attack Shanghai and bring further disaster to the family. Finally mistaking New Year firecrackers for bombs, Ye, driven to madness, urges those around her to take up arms against the imaginary enemies. SPOILERS END

This movie was made after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and these events play a pivotal role in the action as well as the spirit of the film, especially its frequent and undisguised nationalistic appeals, including one directly to the audience! As for the title, apart from indicating the nature of the main character's business, as the plot moves forward, it seems to suggest that the characters themselves are mere toys in the hands of Fate.

Friday July 13, 7pm, The Castro, San Francisco

Saturday May 26, 2:30pm, The Harvard Exit, Seattle

"To kowtow before a tiger means to be his food."

An artisan toymaker is forced to leave her bucolic village and move to Shanghai when her husband dies and cheap foreign imports ruin her business. The change has tragic results for Ye Dasao (Ruan Ling-Yu), swallowed up by the violence and anonymity of city life, as she descends into madness.

Released by the Lianhua Film Company in 1933, Xiao Wanyi (Little Toys) was the third and final pairing of the "Great Poet" director Sun Yu and "The Garbo of Shanghai" Ruan Ling-Yu. Sun paints a sentimental portrait of country life with the lyrical imagery of handcrafted toys and masterful choreography of large groups. The jarring transformation to an urban nightmare is propelled by a dogged undercurrent of anti-imperialist propaganda. Of particular note are bookend images of tears on Ye's hands and an innocent image of toy tanks in playtime, which suddenly transport the viewer into the horrific reality of war.