Tag: Sincere

Walking up Nanking Road

The weather was really nice last week, I spent time walking up the Western stretch of Nanjing Dong Lu, the former Nanking Road. Going from the Bund to the Race course, Nanking Road was the main road of Old Shanghai and its main shopping street. It is still very busy nowadays, although it mostly caters for tourists. Walking down Nanjing the newly pedestrian street all the way to the Bund is a must for a Shanghai visit.

1930s vs 2000s

Although many of the old buildings of the Nanking Road have been destroyed, the above section (corner of Nanking road and Hoopei road / Nanjing Dong Lu and Hubei Lu) has not changed so much, as seen on above picture. The four main modern department stores of Old Shanghai were built on this stretch and those buildings are still here.

Some of the buildings on the left side have been teared down, but Wing On department store (1918) is still visible. The façade has been renovate and looks very nice. Unfortunately, the interior been ruinovated several times in the last decades.

On the right side, Sincere department store building (1917) is also still visible. Although it has been renovated, the building is in less good shape than the Wing On. The façade is half covered by an ugly advertising. The ground floor is occupied by cloth shops. The hotel in the back of the building has been expended to occupy a large share of what was the department store.

  • Sun Sun department store (picture virtualshanghai.net)
  • Former Sun Sun department store

Finally, the middle spire of has disappeared but the building supporting it has not. The former Sun Sun Department store (1935), designed by Hungarian architect C.H. Gonda is still there, although it is less visible. Sincere spire can be seen in the background of above picture left. Further down is the location the fourth department store of Nanking Road, the Da Sun, now Shanghai N1 department store.

Modern skyscrapers in the background seem just behind the Sun Sun, although they are much further, located on the side of people square. The lowest dome is the New World shopping mall, located at the spot of the New World entertainment centre and hotel.

Shanghai Cinema Studio

Shanghai Cinema studio had been on my visit list for a long time. The studio is famous to host a rebuilt version of Old Shanghai and was the film location for for period movies and TV series, including “Lust, caution” and “繁花 / Shanghai blossoms“, as well as , “Shanghai Shanghai” and “The last tycoon“. It takes a long drive to reach the location in SongJiang but the trip is well worth it.

Shanghai Cinema Studio
The fake Nanking Road

The most impressive sight is surely the small strech of rebuilt 1930’s Nanking Road. Centered around the corner of Nanjing Dong Lu and Zhejiang Lu, the side includes a fake Wing On store, a fake Sincere store and and a fake Sun Sun Store. Picture perfect with period signs and tramway karts driving around, it really gives the atmosphere of time travel. The ground floor of the buildings is well replicated, with the higher floor being rebuilt on a smaller scale, a normal feature of movie sets and backgrounds. Walking around there feels very much like walking in an Old Shanghai postcard. Only missing would be the hundreds of people that normally go around this very busy part of the city.

Tram in Old Shanghai
Tram in Old Shanghai

The picture would not be complete with the tramway, with the short ride being the only way to ever experience tramways in Old Shanghai. The tramway shakes and feels just like a real ride in the city, with the noises and motions I used to experience on the oldest lines of Budapest network. Watching the tramway going up this fake Nanking Road really adds up to the atmosphere.

Shanghai other iron bridge
Shanghai other iron bridge

The rest of the cinema studio is also made of various buildings mostly copied from Old Shanghai. They include a copy of the Moller Villa on Shaanxi Nan Lu, the Hudec building located on Feng Yang Lu and one of the Wing On Extension on Nanjing Dong Lu. There is also a copy of the New World Building that used to be at the end of Nanking Road, now replaced by the (not so nice) New World Shopping center. I was expecting to find a copy of Shanghai’s iconic Garden Bridge, but only found a copy of the other iron bridge that is further up the river. Most of the other buildings are not actual copies, but they fit the general style of the period including the church. It seems very popular for wedding pictures though I don’t think such a church was actually ever built in Shanghai.

For movies filmed in the Shanghai Film Studio, please follow posts “Lust, caution” and “繁花 / Shanghai blossoms“, as well as , “Shanghai Shanghai” and “The last tycoon“.