Romance in Metropolitan Shanghai

A determined director at the Oriental Silk Factory is confronted with a personal and professional crossroads when her ex-husband offers her a quiet exit: resign and take a position in Japan. The story follows her weighing of loyalty to the factory and colleagues against the pull of a different life overseas, while old domestic tensions resurface. Everyday scenes at the mill and in Shanghai neighborhoods show how work, memory, and pride complicate a seemingly simple proposal. The film keeps its focus on character and atmosphere, avoiding melodrama, and lets small moments reveal the stakes of a move that could change her sense of self and community.

Directed by Xu Jihong and released in 1993, the picture was created from material by Guofu He. The principal cast includes Bai Han, Ding Jiayuan, Wu Jing, Wang Lin, and Cao Duo, and much of the action is grounded in on-location Shanghai settings that emphasize the city's industrial side.

Contemporary press and later coverage are limited, but the film centers on themes of career versus personal ties, the pressures of modernization, and gendered expectations in the workplace. It uses steady pacing and restrained performances to show how everyday decisions carry emotional weight, inviting viewers to consider the cost of migration and change without heavy-handed commentary.

As a snapshot of early 1990s urban life in China, the movie reflects anxieties about globalization and evolving roles for women in industry. It offers material that film students and historians might find useful when tracing shifts in Chinese social cinema, even if it never became a mainstream classic.

There are no widely cited major awards or festival prizes associated with this title in available sources, and detailed box office or accolade records appear scarce, which has limited its visibility outside specialist circles.