Gadis jang Terdjoeal
4 /10 1 Votes
Country Dutch East Indies | Director The Teng Chun Language Indonesian | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Release date c.
1937 (1937) (Dutch East Indies) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Gadis jang Terdjoeal is a c. 1937 film from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). It was directed by The Teng Chun, his first film to recognise native interests.
Contents
Plot
Han Nio is in love with Oey Koen Beng. However, Han Nio's mother – hoping for a rich son-in-law to feed her gambling habit – arranges for Han Nio to marry a rich young man named Lim Goan Tek. Though they have a daughter, their life together is unhappy, and ultimately Goan Tek accuses of Han Nio of stealing from him and runs her out of the house. She falls ill and dies soon afterwards, but not before meeting Koen Beng. Learning of how his former lover had been treated, Koen Beng seeks out Goan Tek. However, before he can have his revenge, Han Nio's brother Eng Swan – the real thief – shoots Goan Tek, killing him.
Production
Gadis jang Terdjoeal was produced and directed by The Teng Chun for his company, Java Industrial Film. He had made his directorial debut in 1931 with the film Boenga Roos dari Tjikembang, and his subsequent productions had been based on Chinese legends and targeted at ethnic Chinese audiences. Following Albert Balink's Pareh (Rice) in 1936, The realized the potential of native audiences and began directing works with more modern stories which suited their interests, although characters remained Chinese.
The cast and crew of this black-and-white film is otherwise not recorded.
Release and reception
Gadis jang Terdjoeal was released around 1937. The film is likely lost. Movies in the Indies were recorded on highly flammable nitrate film, and after a fire destroyed much of Produksi Film Negara's warehouse in 1952, old films shot on nitrate were deliberately destroyed. As such, American visual anthropologist Karl G. Heider suggests that all Indonesian films from before 1950 are lost. However, JB Kristanto's Katalog Film Indonesia (Indonesian Film Catalogue) records several as having survived at Sinematek Indonesia's archives, and film historian Misbach Yusa Biran writes that several Japanese propaganda films have survived at the Netherlands Government Information Service.