Midlife Sorrows

This film (drama)Also known as哀樂中年，is aMainland ChinaProducerwomen sex，At1949Released in year 。The dialogue language isMandarin Chinese，Current Douban rating9.3(For reference only)。

Shanghai in the 1920s or 30s. Chen Shaochang (played by Shi Hui), who has founded a primary school for many years and serves as its principal, lost his wife early on and raised two sons, Jianzhong and Jianping, and a daughter, Jianying, on his own. His elder sister, who lives with him, advises him to remarry. Though he has thought about it, witnessing the mistreatment of his close friend's daughter, Liu Minhua, by her stepmother has made him abandon the idea. Soon after, his close friend passes away, and Minhua bids farewell to him before her stepmother moves away, leading to a ten-year separation. When they meet again, Minhua (played by Zhu Jiachun) has grown into an independent and strong yet virtuous new woman. Not wanting to be controlled by her stepmother any longer, she asks Shaochang to help her find a job. Subsequently, she becomes Shaochang's colleague. The grown-up Jianzhong (played by Han Fei) fulfills his wish of becoming a bank clerk and, gaining the manager's favor, meets his daughter Feng Lijun (played by Li Huanqing). He quickly becomes her ideal match, and their social status rises. The Jianzhong couple feels embarrassed by Shaochang's humble position as a primary school principal and advises him to retire at home as an old man. Though Shaochang is reluctant, he obediently complies. Minhua takes over his job. However, his days of idleness are hard to bear, with each day feeling as stagnant as his broken old pocket watch. When he shares his boredom with his family, they either blame him for not knowing how to enjoy his good fortune or are too busy with their own affairs to care. His sense of loss grows day by day, and conflicts with the Jianzhong couple also increase. As Qingming, the day for tomb-sweeping, approaches, Shaochang meets Minhua while honoring his late wife. He laments that one can only wait to die in old age, but Minhua believes that he is in his prime career-wise and encourages him to return to teaching. After he secretly follows Minhua's advice to go back to school, news leaks out and Jianzhong’s attitude towards him becomes even colder, but he is resolute. "Heaven cares for the lonely grass, and the world loves the late sunny skies." Afterward, he inadvertently realizes that he and Minhua have long been in love and decides to marry her, which greatly infuriates the Jianzhong couple.