Crescent moon = Yueyaer = 月牙儿

Based on a short story written in the 1930s by Lao She, ‘Crescent Moon’ portrays the inexorable injustice exerted by an unfair economic system, through the reminiscences of a young girl gradually forced into prostitution by poverty. Yuerong’s father dies when she is only a little girl; her mother remarries a kind patron, but he dies too. Penury pushes her mother into prostitution, for which Yuerong cannot forgive her. She leaves home and lives at school, but after graduation is unable to find work. She lets a man take care of her for a while, but then discovers he is married. Later she becomes a waitress, but loses the job when she refuses to sleep with the customers. In the end she has no choice but to follow in her mother’s footsteps.

Credits: Directors, Huo Zhuang, Xu Xiaoxing, Xing Dan ; writers, Huo Zhuang, Zhang Fan, Wang Zhi’an ; photography, Sun Cheng, Meng Fanjun ; music, Liv Zhuang ; editing, Zhon Tingmei, An Xiaohua.
Cast: Song Dandan, Siqin Gaowa.