WASHINGTON FILM INSTITUTE
presents an
NHK WORLD-JAPAN SCREENING:
A STRANGER IN SHANGHAI
WEDNESDAY 26 FEBRUARY
THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB
529 14th Street, NW, 13F
Washington, DC 20045 / MAP
A STRANGER IN SHANGHAI
China was in turmoil in 1921 when renowned Japanese novelist, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, (author of “Rashomon”) visits Shanghai as a newspaper correspondent. He’d read classic Chinese novels growing up but China is quite different from the utopian place that he was expecting. It’s hard for him to reconcile fantasy with reality. In a country lost between hope and despair, the novelist meets a variety of locals from revolutionaries to prostitutes, each affecting him in unexpected ways…