City of Devils in Beijing – Shanghai Noir in Sanlitun – 22/3/18

Launching City of Devils in Beijing tonight, a city that loved Midnight in Peking but are they willing to step once again into the Badlands, Shanghai this time, and see just how really down and dirty sleazy old x-pat China can get in the late 1930s….I do hope so…. more details and tickets etc here…

CITY OF DEVILS: A SHANGHAI NOIR
Paul French

moderated by Alec Ash

Thursday, March 22, 8 pm | 60 RMB

It’s time to go back and explore Shanghai’s Badlands…

Immerse yourself in 1940’s Shanghai with this astonishing story of two men whose lives intertwine in crime and twisted friendship. In a city under siege Viennese Joe Farren rose to fame by cashing in on Shanghai’s desperate pleasure seeking. King of the chorus lines, his name was splashed in neon across the infamous Badlands nightclub ‘Farren’s’. American fugitive Jack Riley, his fingertips acid-burnt found a future in Shanghai as ‘The Slots King’. ‘Dapper Joe’ and ‘Lucky Jack’ collided, clashed and came together again in a frantic struggle to survive the city’s last days. In City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir Paul French resurrects the denizens of old Shanghai’s ganglands, the drug-running, the gambling, and the graft, vividly restoring this long-overlooked side of the city’s history. In conversation with Alec Ash, author of Wish Lanterns.