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Critical Review of "The City that Never Sleeps" (Bu Ye Cheng) |
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 But this intentional effort to set Zhang Bohan apart from both the “the comprador bourgeoisie” (as represented by the Chinese negotiator for Japan) and the “bureaucratic bourgeoisie” (after the Sino-Japanese War was over, this same negotiator reinvented himself and became a bureaucratic capitalist with close link to the Nationalist regime) remains dubious if we more closely examine some of the elements both within and without the film. First, although not specified in the film, it is due to the expertise in management Zhang acquired from the West that the family enterprise is saved and subsequently expanded in face of the Japanese competition. The demarcation between the entrepreneurs of Shanghai and that of the interior and other treaty ports, as Marie-Claire Bergere pointed out in The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, lies in the fact that almost all the Shanghai entrepreneurs “possessed a measure of either direct or indirect experience of Western economic methods” (176), while the latter “always appear[s] to function as a group at an essentially local or regional level” (6). Furthermore, it was by no means rare that in the process of development and expansion Shanghai cotton mill owners frequently hired professionals from Japan. The newly emerged group of Shanghai cotton mill owners, therefore, could in no way cut off its close connection with the West and Japan. Second, as the film itself shows, Zong Yichun, a speculator working first for the Japanese then for the Nationalist regime, remains to be a frequent guest of the Zhang mansion. In order to survive in an adverse circumstance, Zhang has to win Zong’s favor. As the first part of the film draws to an end, we see Zhang Bohan is trapped in the option market, a rare business maneuver that makes his “national bourgeoisie” status ambiguous.
But even a “pure” “national bourgeoisie” status is problematic in the overall scheme of building a unified socialist state. Mao’s initial tolerance of the “national bourgeoisie” was soon followed by a series of political campaigns that aimed to eventually eliminate this special group of people and turn them into the working class. Although this political and social project was by no means bloodless and free from fierce resistance, its filmic representation gives little indication of the violent nature of these campaigns. Instead, Zhang Bohan is depicted as a redeemable capitalist who gradually realizes the “truth” of the socialist revolution and joyfully participates in this process.
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