Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

The Peach Girl (1931)

This drama, The Peach Girl (1931), stars a young Ling-yu Ruan.

To watch this film is to discover the charms that made Ling-yu a star. Her face is quite expressive and when she smiles, the screen lights up.

Ruan was a revered actress of the late Chinese silent era, who won popular acclaim for her work in a series of social dramas. Unable to cope with life, Ling-yu committed suicide in 1935 at the age of 24.

— Carl Bennett

This Chinese DVD edition has been mastered from a good to very-good 16mm reduction print, which was copied from a 35mm print that shows early signs of nitrate decomposition. The biggest issue with this disc is that a substantial portion of the left and bottom of the picture has been matted out (see below), which makes reading intertitles difficult.

Another disappointment of this edition is that the film is presented without a musical score.

If you need a copy of this film right away then you could pick-up this edition, but we suspect that it might be worthwhile waiting for a higher-quality edition to be released.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition has been discontinued and is . . .