While this 1927 romance enjoyed some success, its genre and several of its plot twists indicate why audiences were eager to embrace the two hot new trends that emerged that year, the traditional costume drama and the swordsman action adventure. While the film was a well-done major production from the leading Shanghai studio with some of its top movie talent involved, “A Beauty” repeated such then-common plot devices of struggle over an inheritance, or two young people meeting and falling in love while one is nursing the other through recovery from illness or injury. Moreover, although arranged marriages were much less common by the time it was made, through a historical prologue and later flashbacks Zheng Zhengqiu was still able to launch another attack on that traditional practice, one of his favorite targets, by presenting it as the root cause of many later problems.
Er Ba Jiaren (1927) 二八佳人 (A Beauty of 16)
Mingxing. B&W. Silent. 12 reels. Premiered May 25, 1927 at the Palace. Direction, Screenplay and Program notes: Zheng Zhengqiu. Assistant Directors Zhu Fei, Gao Lihen. Cinematography: Shi Zhongheng. Cast: Ding Ziming (Laibao/Yilian), Gong Jianong (Uncle Ma), Xiao Ying (Ma Laoxiang), Fu Beiqiu (Aunt Ma), Zhu Fei (Tang Xiaoyu), Wang Xianzhai (Tang Youdao), Huang Junpu (Zhang Baicheng), Li Lina (Gu Xuehong), Tang Jie (Old Lin), Gao Lihen (Bao Liren), Wang Mengshi (Xu Zeren), Lin Aiwen (younger sister-in-law),), Yuan Jinhua (elder sister-in-law), Yan Zhongying (Weng Zuomin), Ding Hua (Xu's second wife, Madame Wang), Zheng Yisheng (Bao Weiliang), Tao Jingqu (Weiliang’s stepmother), Ding Xiangping (Liang San), Ye Liangde (Young Liu), Wang Xieyan (Xu's first wife, Madame Zhu).
Some years earlier, the family of a young man named Xu Zeren had committed him to an arranged marriage. With the passage of time, he became prosperous but the marriage was not a happy one. He fell in love with Lianxiang ("Lotus Fragrance"), a young servant in his household, and she became pregnant from the relationship. When his wife learned of this, she drove the girl from their home. Broken-hearted at losing Lianxiang, the one he really loved, Zeren gave her a valuable parting gift: a diamond ring encrusted with emeralds. Sixteen years go by, and the widowed but now happily remarried Xu Zeren recalls his lost first love, and asks his cousin Tang Youdao to find out what became of her and the child.
Meanwhile, in a rural community called Ma Family Village, an elderly man called Ma Laoxiang takes out that same ring to give to his daughter Laibao ("Treasure Comes") on the occasion of her 16th birthday. But after a brief celebration, he tells her the sad story of her origins. She is not really his daughter: years before, a pregnant young woman had come through the village, and the lonely and kindly old man had taken her in. After giving birth to a baby girl, the young woman had committed suicide by jumping from the stone bridge that spanned the stream flowing through the village. But before that, she asked him to raise her daughter as his own, and to give her that ring on her 16th birthday in remembrance of the mother she never knew.
[above, On her 16th birthday, Laibao (Ding Ziming) receives a beautiful ring and the story of her origins]
Deeply moved by these revelations, Laibao takes to going alone to the bridge on moonlit nights to weep for her mother, and on one of these occasions she sees a young man trip and fall while crossing the bridge, injuring himself. Seeing he cannot walk unaided, she helps him back to her home and sends for a doctor. The young man's name is Bao Weiliang, and during the time of his recovery, he and Laibao fall in love. But his stepmother and sisters-in-law are adamantly opposed to Weiliang's marrying a country girl, and although sympathetic, Weiliang's henpecked father orders his son to return home. The lovers part sadly. Shortly thereafter the Xu family locates Laibao, her possession of the ring proves her identity, and her overjoyed birth father Xu Zeren convinces her to join his family. He also renames her Yilian ("Memories of Lotus").
[Laibao, now Yilian, is warmly welcomed by her birth father and stepmother]
Back home, Weiliang misses Laibao so much that he lets himself go and falls ill. His father, deciding his son really is in love, for once stands up to the women in his household and grants permission for the couple to wed. Weiliang happily returns to the countryside to tell Laibao the happy news, but finds her home empty when he arrives. Tang Youdao has been carrying out his own agenda: he covets the Xu family wealth and property, and plans to gain control of it by having his son Xiaoyu marry into the Xu family. Xiaoyu has been engaged to another girl, Gu Xuehong, but likes the idea of marrying money so much that he breaks off this earlier commitment. Laibao (now Yilian) has learned of this plot, and when she sees Weiliang passing by on the road outside the family home, she escapes by jumping from her bedroom window and joins him. Under cover of night the young couple flee to the Ma Family Village, with Xiaoyu leading the Tang and Xu families in pursuit. But when they arrive at the village, they are confronted by all the village people, summoned by her adoptive father Ma Laoxiang via the village emergency gong. The girl publicly exposes the Tangs' scheme to gain control of the Xu family fortune, as well as Xiaoyu's shameful treatment of his fiancée Xuehong. Weiliang persuades his stepmother and stepsisters to accept Yilian as his wife (not too difficult, since the country girl is now an heiress-apparent), and all ends well.
