Abstract: Filmed during the height of the Great Leap Forward Movement in 1959, Jintian wo xiuxi(It’s my day off) is a movie about the “new Shanghai” of socialist China. Through spatial settings and the activities of its main character, a neighborhood policeman, this comedy visualizes the social organization, urban governance, and gender roles of citizens of socialist Shanghai, as well as the architecture and public space used to shape and serve this society. In contrast with most visual representations of Shanghai, which emphasize the city’s Western style architecture, modern facilities, and commercial culture, this movie is a socialist configuration of a modern Chinese city. It invites us to reflect on the attitude of the Communist state towards city and modernist architecture, and the nationalist appropriation of space and time of urban life in contemporary China.