Big Time Jewish Shanghai Movie Planned

Now calm down – it could be good, it could be bad, it could be indifferent but it seems a big time movie is planned on old Jewish Shanghai. Apparently it’s a Sino-US creation top be called The Melanie Violin. Refugees, World War Two, US$30-45mn, from a novel by He Ning (apparently a Chinese-American writer who I’m afraid I’ve never heard of and Google doesn’t seem to have heard of either so maybe, God Forbid!, Xinhua‘s got it wrong?) and a Jewish violinist falling in love with a Shanghainese girl – aahh, cross-cultural relationships!! very nice, a bit more 2011 than 1943 though. Xinhua has very brief details here. Xinhua boldly asserts that, ‘Today, there are still some Jewish descendants living in Shanghai.’ If they mean there are some Jews in Shanghai then fair enough obviously; if they mean there are people living in Shanghai now who lived in the old Ghetto then that’s a little more of a claim – if there are any do get in touch!!

Still, Auschwitz survivor and Schindler’ s list producer Branko Lustig is apparently involved so who knows…could be a winner.

BTW: in case you’re not sure where it was – here’s Shanghai with the ghetto area highlighted.