The Spring River Flows East (DVD) A film by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli) The Spring River Flows East also translated as The Tears of Yang-tse, details the trials and tribulations of a family around the Second Sino-Japanese War, in pre-war, wartime and post-war China. The first part of the film, Eight War-Torn Years details the early life and marriage of a young working-class couple, Sufen (Yang Bai), and Zhang Zhongliang (Tao Jin) and the strain produced when the husband is forced to flee to Chungking while leaving his family in Shanghai during the war. The second part of the film details Zhang Zhongliang's return to Shanhai, now married into a wealthy bourgeois family whom Sufen is forced to work as a maid. Originally released in two parts in 1947, The Spring River Flows East is generally considered one of the great Chinese films of the period.