The ML Wei Heling is ML in New Year Sacrifice as well as playing a newspaper vendor friend of the ML in Street Angel, both movies are Chinese cinema classics ; New Year Sacrifice from 1956 is in color, whereas Street Angel from 1937 is still in black and white, but with a FL who became famous for her songs. Both portray ordinary people: New Year Sacrifice is centered around those living in the countryside; Street Angels around those living in Shanghai city.
The story of Xianglin Sao, downtrodden by her in-law family and the towns people she worked for, reminds of the first part of Kong Xiu's life as the wife of a farmer whose family expects her to toil at home and in the fields, and give birth to male heirs. But the fate of Kong Xiu is kinder; there are no wolves to take away her son, she only has to give him up to the farmer's family, and be content with caring for a daughter. It's a hard life in both movies, but the fate of women does seem to have improved a bit since the 1956 adaptation of Lu Xun's tragic short story.
