Chedun's fake Nanjing Road: where 1930s Shanghai is still built, and still filming

The tram covers the length of Nanjing Road in under a minute, then stops, because that is where the road ends. This Nanjing Road stands in Chedun (车墩, Chēdūn), a town in Shanghai's Songjiang district, and it was built to be filmed rather than lived on.

Why the real street stopped working

Central Shanghai still has its 1930s buildings, but it no longer has the 1930s sightlines. Air-conditioning units, fire stairs, bright signage and constant traffic mean a period crew would spend more money hiding the present than shooting the past.

The Shanghai Film Park (上海影视乐园, Shànghǎi Yǐngshì Lèyuán) at Chedun answers that by owning the entire frame: shopfronts, tram rails, telephone poles, a church front with nothing behind it, and a short waterfront with a bund of its own. Facades are repainted between productions, so the freshest paint usually marks the block used last.

What a weekday actually looks like

Visitors and productions share the same ground. A crew member with a rope will hold you at a corner for a few minutes, then wave you past the edge of a shot; extras in cheongsam and school uniforms wait on the kerb with their phones out, which is the clearest sign the filming is real rather than staged for guests.

Mornings are quieter and the light runs along the street rather than across it. Give the site two to three hours on foot, carry cash for the small stalls near the entrance, and treat a roped-off block as information rather than an obstacle — it usually means the most interesting thing that day is happening behind it.

Nothing here is old. Everything here is copied from something that was.

车墩不是老上海，是为镜头重建的老上海。