Based on Zhang Henshui's novel of the same name, it follows a young student who falls in love with a singer, even as another woman vies for his attention and a relative attempts to match him with a third.
Meanwhile, Guan Xiugu, the daughter of his friend, has fallen in love with him; her feelings become stronger after Fan helps pay to treat her ailing father.
[4] Mingxing announced its intention to produce Fate in Tears and Laughter on 18 September 1930, issuing a press release that it would be adapting Zhang Henshui's novel of the same name.
Serialized in the Xinwen Bao newspaper between 1929 and 1930, the novel Fate in Tears and Laughter had become a reader favourite and quickly adapted to comics, radio, and stage.
[3] Fate in Tears and Laughter starred Hu Die, Xia Peizhen, Wang Xianzai, Gong Jianong, and Zheng Xiaoqiu.
[8] These contestations cost Mingxing 100,000 yuan (equivalent to ¥9,100,000 in 2019) to cover the fees demanded by Du Yuesheng as well as the potential losses incurred by Dahua.
[9] In her history of Mingxing, Huang Xuelei writes that the financial aftermath of the film's troubled production and subsequent legal woes nearly destroyed the company.