Tells a story of a typical Chinese family, the film Long Live the Mistress is about a traditional Chinese hostess who does her best to keep the whole family happy and harmonious. The Mistress marries the Mister for a year, but her wealthy father looks down on her office clerk husband. On the birthday of the Mister’s mother, the Mistress’s brother meets the Mister’s sister in the birthday party and they fall in love immediately. Simultaneously, the Mister visits the Mistress’s parents’ because he wants to borrow his father-in-law’s money, to help him build a company. However, his father-in-law is not willing to lend him any money and criticizes him for not working hard. After the Mister comes back home, he complains to the Mistress about her father’s callousness. Worrying about the Mister, the Mistress lies to her father that the Mister’s family is very rich so that her father can lend money to the Mister.
Everything changes since then. After building his own company, the Mister becomes smug and even raises a secret lover outside family. The Mistress is very sad after knowing all of these but she hides her sadness and pretends not believing the news from her brother, in order to help his husband save his face. Nonetheless, his company goes bankrupt and his secret lover quits the relationship afterwards. The Mistress asks for a divorce when her husband regrets a lot, especially what he has done to his wife. In the lawyer’s office, the couple both shows their love towards each other, making them realize that they still love each other. Finally the Mistress and the Mister make up again.
The film Long Live the Mistress was produced in 1947, by Wenhua Film Company, which was recognized as paying more attention to the artistic and aesthetic quality of cinema. It had produced the prominent Chinese film Spring in a Small Town. The famous film star, Shangguan Yunzhu (The Spring River Flows East), performed the lover of the Mister in the film. More importantly, the famous female writer, Zhang Ailing, wrote the script for the film. She stressed in the notes of Long Live the Mistress, “Long Live the Mistress describes a traditional Chinese Mistress, who represents a lot of average people. We are all familiar with her; maybe she lives downstairs and we can hear her cooking every day. She has her own sadness although she seems happy, but she still strives for life and tries her best to keep the whole family peaceful, just as the Mistress in the film.”
Long Live the Mistress reveals the deep influence of Hollywood classical cinema to Chinese movies. The storyline focusing on the life of middle class people rather than Chinese typical working class people, shows the trend of mimicking Hollywood. Secondly, the techniques that were usually used in classical Hollywood, such as close-up shots, extreme close-upshots and medium shots in the films (Picture 1 and Picture 2), in this regard, represent this influence on Chinese filmmaking. The triple-take gag in the beginning of the film (from the servant breaks the cup to the Mister’s mom finds it,) is an example of Hollywood typical style. The first part of the gag is Mister’s mother goes downstairs after hearing the sound of the broken cup, while the Mistress lies that the sound is from outside and she covers the broken cup pieces with the newspapers. The second part starts from the Mister’s mother takes the newspapers away while the Mistress hides the cup pieces under the cushion. Then the ending is when the Mister’s mother takes the cushion, she finally finds the cup pieces.
In a more historical and societal respect, Long Live the Mistress, discloses the people’s life during ROC (Republic of China) era, before PRC (People’s Republic of China). The film addresses several significant social events including the inflation during 1947-1949, the conflict between the traditional feudalism value and the western and modernist value, and the popularization of the modern technology such as airplane and radio.
