While both songs were essential to the film’s success, “Song of the Four Seasons” proved pivotal since it was performed alongside pseudo-documentary war footage. “Song of the Four Seasons” offers an insight into the Chinese situation of the 1930s, especially the suffering of people: it entrances the audience with its lyrical description of a maiden driven away from her home, the musical tale accompanied by a montage of war images that evoked Japan’s invasion of Manchuria. Because the footage was played alongside the performance of a love song, the film was able to deliver a message condemning the Japanese invasion without falling foul of censorship restrictions. In late 1930s Shanghai, the National Party exercised strict control over cultural production, meaning that any reference to the Japanese invasion was prohibited, to avoid provoking the masses into rising up against Japan’s military aggression.