Taitai wansui (Long Live the Missis)

Among the many political melodramas of Chinese cinema’s Second Golden Age (1947–1952) is the bittersweet, satirical screwball family comedy "Long Live the Missis", set during the turbulent years of the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists. The quick-witted Sizhen, from Shanghai’s upper middle class, hatches schemes to save her dim-witted husband Zhiyuan from both financial and romantic disaster. The screenplay was written by the renowned Shanghai author Eileen Chang. As in her acclaimed novels, Chang depicts networks of clever, morally ambivalent women who find ways to survive within the system of patriarchal oppression. While Chang’s magnificent screenplay was controversial upon its release, it is now regarded as a classic of interwar Chinese comedy and a masterfully subversive take on traditional misogynistic power structures.