Vintage Shanghai Comedy: “Da Li, Xiao Li & Lao Li 大李，小李和老李“

There are so many reasons to love this 1962 screwball comedy – let us count the ways:

Scenes of 1960s Shanghai. You think images of 1930s Shanghai are rare? Try 1962, the year the Great Leap Forward ended. This is a rare film documentation of the period, including what may be the only existing footage of the Art Deco slaughterhouse when it was still in use – from the (now vanished) Art Deco gates to the walk-in freezer. There are also rare interior shots of houses, shops, and street scenes. Indeed, so beloved is this film in Shanghai that in 2018, a group of well-known actors dubbed the film into Shanghainese.