Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

The Goddess (1934)

Starring the evocative Ling-yu Ruan, The Goddess (1934) is the story of a single mother who must care for her young son in an environment of hostile intolerance. As her options dwindle, she turns to prostitution to provide a living for her son and herself.

An chance encounter leads the young mother to her financial servitude to a street tough. She decides to move to another district to escape his leeching, but the tough finds her and again forces her into working for him.

As her son grows, the mother hides money to ensure her son’s education. The boy begins attending a school, but it is forced into an investigation of the mother’s affairs which results in the resignation of a sympathetic principal and the expulsion of her son. Frustrated, the mother resolves to leave the city altogether until she discovers that the tough has found her hiding place and taken her money. When she confronts the tough, she kills him in a blind rage, and is soon put on trial, where she receives a sentence of 12 years. The old principal visits her in jail and reveal that he is willing to adopt her son to ensure his education and give him a fair chance in life.

The film was directed by Yonggang Wu, and also features Zhi-zhi Zhang and Keng Li. The crudeness of some of the sets are balanced by some well-timed tracking and other well-framed shots.

Ruan was a revered actress of the late Chinese silent era, who won popular acclaim for her work in a series of social dramas. Unable to cope with life, Ling-yu committed suicide in 1935 at the age of 24.

— Carl Bennett

The film is accompanied by a music score by Zou Ye, commissioned by BFI for the 2014 London Film Festival.

This is our recommended home video edition of the film. North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 2 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 2 PAL DVD edition is also available directly from . . .

This NTSC / PAL DVD edition of this late Chinese silent era film was released by the Center for Media Design of Muncie, Indiana’s Ball State University and transferred from a print held by Haghefilm Conservation B.V. of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The 35mm source print held by the Beijing’s China Film Archive is generally of very-good quality, with some shots a little contrasty with blasted out highlight details and plugged-up shadows. The majority of the print holds a reasonably broad range of greytones and image detail, but it is also moderately compromised by persistent speckling, dust on the original negative (white dust on the processed positive print) and processing imperfections, a little emulsion damage (scuffing and minor decomposition), small exposure fluctuations, and a sometimes jumpy picture. The full-frame video transfer well reproduces the image detail and tonal qualities as are present in the source print. The transfer has been well compressed for DVD, revealing few artifacts even in still frames.

The film is accompanied by an original piano score composed and performed by Kevin Purrone. This score is well-composed and performed, and is also available separately on compact disc.

Supplemental material includes a presentation of the original Chinese version of the film and an English-language version facilitated by the alternate angle capabilities of the DVD. Also included is an introduction by video producer Richard J. Meyer (16 minutes). The mini-documentary includes commentary on the music score by Purrone, and the sound design by engineer Stan Sollars.

The disc is region-free and is presented in both NTSC and PAL compatible formats, which allows the disc to be viewed in DVD players nearly worldwide.

This Region 0 NTSC/PAL DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a custom music score.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.