The Adventures of Sanmao the Waif

The film begins in Old Shanghai with a homeless orphan called Sanmao (Three Hairs). Constantly battling with hunger and coldness, he sleeps in garbage carts and eats anything he can possibly find. He tries to mimic other children workers and earns money by selling newspapers and picking up cigarette butts. However, without any parents, he has no one who can teach him how to properly survive in a society.

Fortunately, Sanmao comes across a group of street urchins who take him in and look out for him while working together. The little earnings that he manages to make still have to be given to their “Little Boss.” To Sanmao, the world seems to have abandoned him. He envies the children who can attend school and who have parents who will buy anything for them. However, he stays optimistic and resilient, and keeps on working hard.

One day, Sanmao is blamed for stealing a wallet that he merely wants to return, but is then saved by the “Big Boss.” Big Boss lures Sanmao to work for him with Big Boss’s other “apprentices” as child smugglers. Although Sanmao no longer needs to worry about food and clothes, he detests his “job” and runs away after several attempts.

Unable to continue living on the street, Sanmao by chance sells himself into a rich family who wants to adopt a son. His schedule is constantly packed with different classes in order to prepare him for an upcoming celebration of his adoption. Unfortunately, Sanmao doesn’t want to become the kind of smart, obedient “son” that the family wishes for. On the night of the celebration, Sanmao decides to quit being the family’s obedient toy so he invites all his homeless friends to a feast before escaping this home.

Sanmao returns to his harsh but free life on the street. His days continue on as before until the Liberation of Republics of China. Countless homeless orphans like Sanmao join the march on the street and dance alongside other people. This heart-warming ending scene shows a strong contrast to a previous scene, where Sanmao and other homeless children were chased away by the police when they attempted to join a Boy Scout parade, and thus hints at a hopeful future for Sanmao and other orphans.

Three Hairs: Wang Longji [2]

Little Boss: Ding Ran

Big Boss: Guan Hongda

Rich Wife: Lin Zhen

Rich Husband: Du Lei

Little Ox: Wang Gongxu

Auntie: Huang Chen

Lao San: Yang Shaoqiao

The film is based on Zhang Leping’s 1947 cartoon series of the same title, which extends and continues Sanmao’s adventures after the end of Zhang Leping’s comic-strip. It was originally planned for release in 1948, but it was banned by Guomindang. It was cleared for screening only after the People's Liberation Army took over Shanghai. During this delay, a scene was added in which Sanmao experiences a turn of fortune concurrent with the political change.[3] The director explains in his memoirs that the new ending was produced in haste, in the fervor of Shanghai's liberation.[4]

The ending parade scene reconstructs the 6 July parade and seamlessly blends in with documentary clips of the communist party parade that happened before the film was released. The documentary shots are shown through Sanmao’s point of view.

This film shows the lives of orphans, the “wandering children”,[5] who struggle to survive on the streets in 1940s Shanghai. It highlights the inequality among children in the 1940s when Sanmao and his orphans friends are not able to enjoy the joy of celebrating Children’s day with the richer children, despite the slogan "Children are the protagonists of the state's future! We must cherish the children and respect them!"

The last parade scene where a dancer invites Sanmao and other vagrant children to leave the sidelines and join in the celebration, contrasts with an earlier parade scene where Sanmao and his friends are chased away and beaten by the police after attempting to join a Boy Scout parade. This contrast implies that the Old Society rejects this group of homeless youths, while New China embraces them.

Since 1949, because of the political and revolutionary backgrounds in contemporary china, almost all the films had been produced among six major motifs: 1) praise and loyalty to Mao and the Communist Party, 2) revolution and class struggle, 3) comparison between the new and old society, 4) heros and models, 5) love and family ties, and 6) backwardness and progress. In fact, the latter five motifs were all serving the first one, praise and loyalty to Mao and the Communist Party. It was this idea that raised patriotism and nationalism to an unprecedented level of height, and formulated absolute standards in the political sense for the other five motifs. The Adventures of Sanmao the Waif, however, was one of the less than 10 films produced in 17 years since 1949 that didn’t praise Mao and the party and didn’t explicitly show loyalty.[6]

The initial two versions of ending didn’t feature the celebration of liberation. It was after May 1949 when Shanghai was liberated that Xia Yan, Director of the Art Department of Shanghai Military Management Committee, recommended adding the celebration parade that featured portraits of Mao Zedong and Zhu De. This new ending adds to the political meaning of "reunion" in addition to humor in this film[7]

The Adventures of Sanmao the Waif is an exemplar that combines time and arts. It was released in 1949 and received both domestic and international acclaim. The film portrays a lively character in an environment with sharp social contradictions. The film criticizes the injustice and cruelty towards the poor in the old society, and meanwhile extols the “Sanmao Spirit” of being strong, kind, optimistic, warm, and humorous even when facing a miserable fate and under a helpless and miserable circumstance. The film contains some distinctive characteristics of the time and represents the consciousness that’s often found on left-wing writers.[8]

Though the film accuses the unjust reality of the old society, it is expressed through a form of comedy. Many scenes in the film are exaggerated, and the power of this film comes largely from this kind of over-exaggeration. For example, the famous sequence where the rich lady holds a party for Sanmao but Sanmao causes a farce with a group of homeless kids, is shadowing resistance against social norms in the old society. Unlike the film Myriad of Lights which uses strict realism and tragedy to reveal the miserable destiny of the lower class, The Adventures of Sanmao the Waif adopts the form of romantic exaggerated comedy to express this theme.[7]

In 1983, the film won the Jury Award at the 12th Figueira Da Foz International Film Festival of Portugal.[9]

In 1984, the film won The Special Mention Award at the 14th Giffoni International Film Festival of Italy.[9]

In 2005, he film was included in the Top One Hundred Chinese film in the Past Centenary(中国电影百年百部名).

• The Adventures of Sanmao the Waif at IMDb
• Wanderings of Three Hairs the Orphan 三毛流浪記 (1949) with English subtitles on Youtube published by Mordern Chinese Cultural Studies