January 03, 2005

Zhou Xuan: Shanghai's "Golden Throat" A beautiful singer-actress with a unique singing style and a mysterious past, star of 43 movies including her most famous and beloved, "The Angel in the Street," Zhou Xuan died tragically at the age of 37.

See also Tales of Old China, Shanghai Soup, and The Old Orient Galerie for more from this time period. P.S. Not sure how Shanghai Soup's bandwidth will hold up, so please be kind to the mp3s. :)

posted by shinything 19 years ago
  • She looks like Zhang Ziyi...or is it vice-versa?
  • The ephemera in those last three is superb, shinything, thank you.
  • Thanks, shinything, for this! The Shanghai Soup Zhou Xuan page has, like, 32 .mp3's -- that'll keep me busy for awhile. When I froogled for a dvd of "Angel in the Street", it came up with stuff like "Angel Heart" and "Black Street Hookers", but no Zhou Xuan.
  • here it is, in Mandarin (with subtitles in Traditional and Simplified Chinese--but no English).
  • Her styling in the photos, the orchestral accompaniment to her voice in the mp3s I sampled, and even the sound of her voice (if it was in English) are very evocative of what little I've seen of classic 1930s cinema from Hollywood. Thank you for this dose of glamour.
  • Why, thanks, patita! I also found it at yesasia.com, same edition, still no subtitles, but cheaper at nine bucks (six for a PAL version). I'm peculiar enough that I don't really mind the lack of subtitles, so I'll probably get it anyway, just to view what was apparently the only movie she did that she really liked.
  • no problem, Little Durian. I've used fivestarlaser.com before and figured they'd probably have it. If you do get it, please let us know what you think!