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This is one of three Topical Budget newsreels filmed in Shanghai in 1927,
around the time of the Shanghai Massacre, a purging of Communists from the
Kuomintang involving thousands of executions. Previous riots by Chinese
revolutionaries at the British Concession in Hankou and in urban Shanghai,
coupled with this new threat of violence, led to the British military being
called in to protect the ex-pat community as well as businesses and trade.
Made four days after 'A City in Chaos' (Topical Budget 815-1), it shows the
arrival of the Royal Marines and Coldstream guards in Shanghai. As seen in 'Our
Boys' (Topical Budget 812-2), filmed a month earlier, they were not the first
troops sent to protect British interests.
In the film, the troops march through the city in a display of military
power, watched by crowds lining the streets. Major-General Sir John Duncan takes
the salute in front of the British Consulate, which was then on the Bund. At the
end of the film it is possible to catch glimpses of the shops and businesses of
Shanghai; without these shop signs in Chinese, it would be easy to mistake the
city for a European one.
Lucy Smee
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Complete item (1:18)
