Original subtitles

10 million inhabitants, the second biggest city in the world.

The name of Shanghai evokes crime, drugs and corruption.

But if Beijing is the capital of revolutionary purity,

Shanghai is the city where struggle and transformations are most obvious.

It has changed profoundly within a timespan of a single generation.

The financial empires of the West

used to have their concessions and headquarters in Shanghai.

By now, they've been converted into public offices.

The former slaves have turned into the ruling class of workers

that has fueled up the Chinese Revolution of the mid-century.

The history of the Chinese Communist Party started in this brick building number 108 in Wang Zhi Street.

On the 21st of July 1921, [Weixin Film Group

an agent, perhaps mandated by the French police, entered this passage,

traversed this courtyard,

proceeded along this corridor.

He found an empty room.

The attendees of the meeting had already fled.

They were 12 people,

and the meeting was the first congress of the Chinese Communist Party.

Everything remains as it was then: the table, the kettle, the tea cups.

To proceed with the interrupted congress, the participants had to flee in a boat

and navigate to a distant lake.

Of the 12 people, only Mao has survived the storms of history.

The others are dead, or remembered as traitors.

This factory district of Shanghai

hosts an unusual historical site.

It's a museum commemorating the horrors of the colonial epoch.

A quarter century ago, millions of people lived in these huts built of straw and mud.

During the Sino-Japanese War, they had to drink rain water collected in bamboo tubes.

This pond is in the Garden of Mandarin Yu at the heart of Shanghai.

A few decades ago, no Western people could enter here without risking their lives.

There is an elegant pavilion by the pond.

It's a teahouse reserved for senior citizens and their families.

The atmosphere is strange: nostalgic and jovial at the same time.

The recollections of the past mingle with the confidence in the present.

The immense industrial periphery of Shanghai was not born today.

In a certain sense, the city has been industrialized since a few decades ago.

Its factories supplied goods to the entire China.

But, often, the factories were nothing more than large buildings

hastily constructed by hand.

So is this refinery, the largest in the city,

a poor factory built from nearly discarded materials.

The river flowing through Shanghai is called Huangpu.

It's populated with sailing boats and huge cargo ships coming from all over the world.

In this giant river port, the traffic toward the riverside cities in the inland China

exceeds the traffic toward the rest of the world.

Shanghai works and manufactures for China.

Once, it was exactly the opposite.

Back then, there wasn't anything more here than a poor fishermen's village.

Shanghai has been literally invented as a city by the foreign capital in the 19th century.

This is a Chinese military ship.

We had to film it stealthily. [Weixin Film Group

But we don't think we're disclosing any military secrets.

Further on, the stream broadens. You can see buffalos grazing by the riverside.

Huangpu does not flow into the sea, as it may appear,

but adjoins another river, Yangtze, huge as an ocean.

The color line separates the waters of the two streams

which proceed together toward the still distant sea.

There are many factories along the river.

The workday is 8 hours long.

Factories provide trucks and buses for the transportation of the employees.

China has opened its doors, but it still remains a distant

and largely unknown world.

We've given it but a single glance.

There is an old saying in China:

"You can depict tiger's skin, but not his bones.

You can depict people's faces, but not their hearts."