[left,poster for《Cycles of Debt》. Click on any image to view full size]
One of the more successful Chinese movies of 1926 was the Great Wall studio's (still extant)《A String of Pearls》, adapted from the 19th century French story "La Parure" by Guy de Maupassant. The Chinese film version delivered a cautionary message, a strong warning to women of the dangers of vanity, blaming the principal female character for the financial and personal ruin brought to her family by her desire to show off an expensive piece of jewelry. It also criticized her best friend for almost destroying her own marriage through a similar act of vanity.
Blaming women for domestic problems seems to have been a popular theme at the time, for later that same year this film from the Da Zhonghua Baihe studio carried the same warning. However, instead of a domestic tragedy, it related its story as a comedy with a crime subplot. There is no indication the film was an adaptation, but with its trio of couples playing multiple games of musical beds and carrying on romantic liaisons in love nest hotels,《Cycles of Debt》might well have been taken from the works of another 19th century French writer, the farceur Georges Feydeau. The movie's title is actually a double entendre, implying emotional and romantic debt as well as financial.
[above, a wealthy woman's love of money and luxury brings problems; Zhou Wenzhu.]
A departure from other films of the time is the character whose heroic actions bring matters to a successful conclusion. Instead of a brave young man or a virtuous maiden, the heroine was a golddigger, a young woman of easy virtue; and instead of changing her ways in the end and moving onto a righteous path, she is content to go back to her former life as a professional mistress. 
[right, a promiscuous young woman becomes an unlikly heroine; Tang Tianxiu.]
Lianhuan Zhai (1926) 连环债 (Cycles of Debt)
Da Zhonghua Baihe. B&W. Silent. 10 reels. Direction and Screenplay: Zhu Shouju. Cinematography: Zhou Shimu, Yu Shengsan. Principal Cast: Zhou Wenzhu (Mrs. Wang), Tang Tianxiu (Zhou Aizhu), Wang Naidong (Huang Zheng), Wang Zhengxin (Xu Ming). Also: Xie Yunqing.
Wang Zaixi is a businessman, head of the Near East Trust Company. Though the business is a large and prosperous one, bringing him a great deal of personal wealth, Wang himself is very thrifty. His wife however, loves to flaunt their wealth, which upsets Wang Zaixi, who would prefer they live more simply. Wang has two young deputies at his business: one, Xu Ming, has recently married; the other, Huang Zheng, is unmarried but romantically involved with Zhou Aizhu, a young woman of loose morals who has had a succession of lovers, even including Xu Ming at one time. Of all her romantic relationships, Aizhu exploits the one with Huang Zheng the most: his infatuation with her and eagerness to keep her satisfied leads Huang to spend all his savings, and even borrow money to keep his lover in the lifestyle she wants. When legitimate lenders turn him down, Huang turns to a local gang for his loans.
One Sunday afternoon, as Wang Zaixi and his wife are leaving a movie theater, they run into Xu Ming and his wife. The two couples share a taxi, and during the ride Zaixi becomes very favorably impressed with his subordinate's young bride. Similarly, Zaixi's wife finds Xu Ming an attractive young man. So she begins inviting the younger couple over to their home from time to time.
One day when Mrs. Wang doesn't feel well her husband wants to take her to the hospital. But just as he is about to leave work, something unexpectedly crops up which demands his immediate attention. So he asks Xu Ming to accompany Mrs. Wang to the hospital. Huang Zheng, already jealous of Xu Ming's growing personal relationship with the Wangs, is even more resentful of his colleague's being given this assignment. The next day, Mrs. Wang arrives at the business seeking her husband, but he and Xu Ming are at a meeting elsewhere, with only Huang Zheng there to receive her. The two have a very pleasant conversation, after which Mrs. Wang invites Huang to her home for dinner that evening, which he accepts. But as it happens, that very evening Wang Zaixi has a tryst with Mrs. Xu, while her husband Xu Ming is secretly meeting with Huang's girlfriend Zhou Aizhu. So Mrs. Wang and Huang Zheng are left to have an intimate dinner for two.
Huang Zheng has fallen increasingly under the control of the gangsters he owes money. One day, a client has 100,000 yuan in government bonds delivered to the trust company, but since it is after banking hours, Wang Zaixi entrusts Xu Ming to take the bonds home with him and deliver them to the bank the next morning. Huang Zheng tips off the gangsters, and that night they steal the funds. The next morning, Xu Ming discovers the money is missing and reports this to Wang Zaixi. But Wang accuses Xu of embezzlement and has the younger man arrested.
The robbers have had the Wang residence under observation, and when they note how expensively dressed Mrs. Wang is when she goes out, they decide the residence should be worth burglarizing. Because Huang Zheng is familiar with the home, they have him help plan the heist, and to get Mrs. Wang away, they have Huang write her a note setting up a tryst at a local hotel. Before going to the Wang home for the burglary, Huang keeps a date with Zhou Aizhu at her apartment, but forgets to take the note with him when he leaves. Aizhu finds it and her suspicions aroused, disguises herself as a man and goes to the hotel, where she learns of the plot. She immediately goes to Xu Ming's home, informs Mrs. Xu of the situation, and sends her to report it to the police. Aizhu herself goes directly to Wang Zaixi to warn him, then goes to the Wang home. There she finds the thieves have already broken in, and seeing her false lover standing watch outside, Aizhu scales a back wall, enters the home, and finding the thieves in a room they are burglarizing, locks them in. The police arrive and arrest the thieves, who expose Huang Zheng as their inside man.
The denouement: Xu Ming and his wife find they are more in love than ever, while Zhou Aizhu goes back to her dissolute life, as before. The person most shaken by these events is Mrs. Wang, who resolves to stop flaunting her wealth and always dress simply and plainly. Her husband's happy reaction to this is, "If you had dressed like this before, how could there have been any robbery!"
[right, cover of the《Cycles of Debt》 program notes; it is interesting that instead of "shuomingshu," 说明书 the usual Chinese term for this type of document, it is labeled as "benshi" 本事, the term used in Japan] 
