Template:Did you know nominations/Lustrous Pearls

Lustrous Pearls

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• ... that the Chinese silent film Lustrous Pearls featured Art Nouveau intertitles?

• Source: Zhang, Zhen (2005). An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema, 1896–1937. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-226-98238-0. The title cards display the film's modern look. Though sparse, they are decorated with Art Nouveau style drawings of seminudes adorned with roses.

• ALT1: ... that the Chinese silent film Lustrous Pearls has been described as blurring the differences between male and female bodies through long shots? Source: Zhang, Zhen (2005). An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema, 1896–1937. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-98238-0. The latter film is emphatically about the the mobile, indestructible heroine bodies that dare challenge any natural or artificial obstacles. The film is permeated with too many long shots of feet and legs on the move and of bodies wrestling to tell the difference between the female and male characters.
• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Doctor Who series 13

Created by Crisco 1492 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 739 past nominations.

 — Chris Woodrich (talk) 16:47, 19 January 2025 (UTC).

• I will review this. TompaDompa (talk) 23:20, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing: - See below.
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - See below.
• Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Article created on 19 January, and meets the length requirement. The sources are, as far as I can tell, reliable for the information they are cited for—but I would note that basing the entire article on the primary source and a single secondary source is not ideal. There are no obvious neutrality issues. Earwig reveals no copyvio and I didn't spot any instances of unacceptably WP:Close paraphrasing. Both hooks are interesting enough (though I find both borderline) but ALT0 is not properly sourced in the article (see below) and I would like to the "long shot" question (see below) to be resolved before I approve ALT1. QPQ has been done. Some comments about the content:

• The film used few intertitles, though these were presented in both English and Chinese – I don't find this on page 152 of the cited source? Did you mean to cite some other page?
• The intertitles were [...] presented in an ornate Art Nouveau style. – ditto.
• Although the film is set in a rural fishing village, various markers of modernity are presented, including European-style riding breeches and concrete structures. – ditto.
• Huaju had established a reputation for making such "modern costume dramas" – the exact quote from the source is "modern-costume romance".
• It seems to me that the citation to pp. 187–188 should be to pp. 188–189 and the p. 188 one to p. 189.
• obscured through long shots of movement and fighting – does the source mean "long shot" in the sense of a wide shot or a long take here? I've seen it used to mean both and it's not entirely clear to me from context which is meant (I would have thought that close-up shots with rapid cuts would be more effective at producing this effect?). An alternative here would be to make a vaguer reference of some kind (e.g. "the way the scenes are shot" or similar).

Ping Crisco 1492. TompaDompa (talk) 13:40, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

• Hi TompaDompa;

1. Intertitles: You're right, should have been page 187 (the bilingual intertitle cards in Lustrous Pearls are kept to a minimum,)
2. Art Nouveau: Also 187
3. Markers of Modernity: Ditto. Seems I lost track of my page when writing that paragraph.
4. It's not a direct quote, but rather to indicate that the genre is non-standard (i.e., in contrast with contemporary producers of wuxia, who favoured traditional costumes). That being said, I have changed it to the exact quote.
5. Pagination updated.
6. Shot: Zhang meant wide shot in this instance. Cuts are not particularly long in the film. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 14:32, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

• As for sources, unfortunately 夜明珠 is quite common on the Chinese internet in reference to pearls. The string thus brings back a lot of fluff, though this snippet suggests a staircase was borrowed from another film (not in the available snippet); and this one has some plot and a cast list, which is already available in English with Zhang. A lot of other sources referring to specific works seem to be making reference to a novel/story about a young man who becomes obsessed with a Shanghainese dancer, which is obviously a different work. In English, Bao mentions that Zhang showcased his swimming abilities in several films, including this one, which is not quite about the film and probably WP:UNDUE. This is already a solid review of the available literature that I can read. There would likely be reviews and whatnot in the archived copies of Shen Bao and other contemporary newspapers, but with OCR on Chinese not being the best in these archives as well as no specific date of release, looking for them would be a needle in a haystack. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 14:32, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Ready, with either hook. TompaDompa (talk) 14:59, 25 January 2025 (UTC)