Spring in a Small Town

Spring in a Small Town (小城之春) is a 1948 Chinese drama set in a bomb-damaged town in the years just after the Second World War. Zhou Yuwen has been married to Dai Liyan for eight years, and for much of that time he has been ill, a man whose former wealth and standing have faded. She spends her days on dull errands, buying food and medicine, tending a husband she cares for out of duty rather than warmth. The arrival of Zhang Zhichen, a doctor and an old friend of Liyan's, unsettles the household and stirs feelings the couple has long kept buried.

The film was directed by Fei Mu and written by Li Tian-Ji, produced by Bi Jianping for the Wenhua Film Company. It runs 94 minutes, and its cast includes Wei Wei as Zhou Yuwen, Yu Shi as Dai Liyan, Li Wei as Zhang Zhichen, Cui Chaoming as Lao Huang and Zhang Hongmei as Dai Xiou. It followed Fei Mu's earlier work Song of China, and a further film of his, Remorse at Death, was released the same year.

On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.3 from around 3,700 votes, and on TMDB 7.2 from roughly 109 votes. The two averages sit close together, indicating that a relatively small but consistent body of viewers rates the film positively.