Dragon Seed Page #4

Synopsis: Ling Tang and his family live on his prosperous farm in rural Southern China and have not yet felt the impact of the Japanese invasion in the North. Tang's two oldest sons, Lao Ta Tan and Lao Er Tan are married and hard working while youngest son Lao San Tan remains a free spirit. Er's wife Jade is also willfully unconventional and desires to exercises her literacy skills by reading books, a most unfeminine practice in 1930's China. Tang's only daughter is married to Wu Lien, a city merchant who profits from selling Japanese goods. When the dreaded invasion reaches their village, the family is scattered as the sons join the resistance while Wu Lien survives by collaborating with the enemy.
Genre: Drama, History, War
Production: Warner Home Video
 
IMDB:
6.2
PASSED
Year:
1944
148 min
113 Views


You look so pale and so thin.

You are so to be pitied, you big turnip.

I wish I were a man of learning.

I wish I knew the words to ease myself

so I could tell you what I feel.

What do you feel?

I know, but...

I do not have the words.

I too am not very learned.

Is that why

you do not often speak to me?

Two must speak for understanding.

If I tell you everything that is in me,

will you tell me all that is in you?

- Yes.

- Then tonight we will speak together?

Yes.

Fetch me my food.

I will eat here in the courtyard.

- Yes, my husband.

- And since you did not cook the meal...

...you may clean up after it.

- Yes, my husband.

He must have beaten her.

I do not take too much credit to myself...

...that I'm the only man in these parts

who can read and write.

But how would I find time for my books

if you did not send me rice...

...and a new coat now and then,

and sometimes even meat?

You are a scholar and my honored cousin.

It is only proper

that your needs and comforts be supplied.

My land yields enough for all.

Orchid, it is time my grandson

was in his bed.

- Yes, my mother.

- But, cousin, have you ever thought of this:

When your time comes

to go into the earth yourself...

...shall you divide your land

between your sons?

Yes, I have thought of that.

You have made a good beginning.

Do not spoil it.

Will there still be enough for all?

Or will they quarrel

because their bellies are not full?

As my eldest son,

you must answer our cousin.

Can this land feed three men and

their wives and children after I am gone?

It can. For I will eat less meat, if my

brothers will, and leave in peace with them.

If I have taught my sons

that peace is good, I am content.

If you had been with me today, you would

not speak so easily of peace, my father.

If it were proper for a man

to speak to his daughter-in-law...

...l'd ask her why should not

peaceful men speak of peace.

Forgive my wife, Father, for speaking

so boldly, but today at the teahouse...

...students came and showed

the magic pictures and talked.

They told of the war in the North

and how the dwarfs...

...from the East Ocean islands

burn cities and kill our people.

I wonder if my daughter remembers...

...when other students

brought the pictures of flies.

I remember.

Flies as large as water buffalo.

Yes, and they told us

they were more dangerous than tigers.

And everyone knows that our flies...

...are as small as a grain of rice

and as harmless.

And so does it not follow

that today also perhaps...

...both words and pictures were made

too large to be either truth or life?

Does that not quiet

the woman's fear of my daughter?

Of course it does.

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Marguerite Roberts

Marguerite Roberts (21 September 1905 – 17 February 1989) was an American screenwriter, one of the highest paid in the 1930s. After she and her husband John Sanford refused to testify in 1951 before the House Un-American Activities Committee, she was blacklisted for nine years and unable to get work in Hollywood. She was hired again in 1962 by Columbia Pictures. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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