New Year Sacrifice

The Wellington branch of the New Zealand-China Society will present the Chinese film "New Year Sacrifice" on Friday, April 24, at 8 p.m. in the Library Lecture Hall.

This is a full-length colour film, dealing with the life of a peasant girl in China on the eve of the Sun Yat-sen revolution in 1911. The well-known film critic of the New Statesman, William [unclear: Whitoait] (G. W. Stonier), wrote of it:

"Rare qualities from which the Western cinema might well, at this [unclear: juncture] draw lessons . . . "New Year Sacrifico" isn't what we might expect from the New China . . It represents the change from legend to life, from mandarin to the people . .

"New Year Sacrifice finds a universal appeal no less by its common humanity than by the—unfortunately—old-fashioned merit of telling a good story to the best advantage . . . The heroine's part is played beautifully by Pai Yang. Agfacolor acquires delicacy particularly in the night scenes. Here is him which cinemagoers, not debauched by raucousness, cannot fail to enjoy."

The showing of New Year Sacrific offers an opportunity to compare an outstanding Chinese film with the best of the international films shown recently during the Festival of Wellington.