Movies about Feminist Struggles in China
A selection of films I used to research women in Chinese film and that portray some of the issues faced by women in China.
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16 titles
- DirectorShuqin HuangStarsShouli XuBaotian LiQilin JiThe fictional life and career of a famous actress in Chinese opera, a woman who goes against tradition by specializing in playing male roles, especially that of Zhang Kui, a benevolent ghost who appears in several Chinese operas. Although the actress's career brings wealth and fame, it is attained only through considerable struggle against an anti-female system and an unhappy personal life.
- DirectorShaohong LiStarsZhaohui GongYajie HuLu HuiThe young teacher Li Mingguang is to be murdered in the north of China because of having taken the virginity from the young girl Li Pingwa. The whole family wants to take revenge on him for that, even the whole village.
- DirectorYimou ZhangStarsGong LiWen JiangRujun TengWhen a leprous winery owner in 1930s China dies a few days after his arranged marriage, his young widow is forced to run the winery to make a living while contending with bandits, her drunkard lover, and the invading Japanese army.
- DirectorNuanxing ZhangStarsFengxu LiYuanzheng FengTao SongA young girl from the city is sent out to work in a village of Dai people in China's cultural revolution. Here she learns to enjoy being young and gains a new outlook on life.
- DirectorYonggang WuStarsLingyu RuanTian JianZhizhi ZhangStreet walker by night, devoted mother by day, a woman fights to get her young son an education amid criminal and social injustice in China.
- DirectorGang XiaStarsXiaodan YangLi Yu
- DirectorXiaogang FengStarsBingbing FanWei FanXiaogang FengAfter being swindled by her ex-husband, a woman takes on the Chinese legal system.
- DirectorKaige ChenStarsLeslie CheungFengyi ZhangGong LiTwo boys meet at an opera training school in Peking in 1924. Their resulting friendship will span nearly 70 years and endure some of the most troublesome times in China's history.
- DirectorXiaolian PengStarsLiping LüJingming ShiHaiying SunShanghai Women describes the problem that women encounter trying to secure urban (residential) space through the story of women from three generations.
- DirectorJi HuangStarsYixiang HuangXiaolin LiuPingao XiaoSet in her home village in rural Hunan province, Egg and Stone is a powerful autobiographical portrait of a 14-year-old girl's attempts to come to terms with her emerging sexual maturity.
- DirectorJi HuangRyûji OtsukaStarsYao FangXiao LiqiaoHonggui YaoA 16 year-old high-school student is left behind by her parents and longing for love. She steals cellphones and sells them to men she doesn't know. As she takes risks, she has her first sexual experience - a cruel one.
- DirectorTian-yi YangStarsSiyuan ZhaoJia FuPongpazroj DejFang Lei, a Beijing housewife, is leading a peaceful and affluent life with her husband and daughter. Life goes by until one day a man appears in her dreams. His appearance is unclear, but the touch of his body is awakening a woman Fang Lei didn't know she could be. This shadow slowly becomes the lover she can't live without. Afraid of starting to loose her mind, she turns to a Taoist Monk for help. But the separation with her inner ghost is too painful and she soon returns to him.
- DirectorMei HuStarsNina ProllZhiwen WangSusi NicolettiIn 1931 in Vienna, Ya Yunlong, a Chinese national studying to be a police officer meets and falls in love with Fanny Ebner. She follows him to his home country and struggles through turbulent cultural and political times.
- DirectorYang MingmingStarsNai AnYang MingmingXianmin ZhangGirls Always Happy confronts the contemporary city life with a brand new perspective, and portrays with astonishing precision, the spectacle of mutual repulsion, hatred, and harm in a single mother-daughter relationship in a Beijing Hutong. Yet from the despair grows the power of tender love.
- DirectorXiaolian PengStarsWenrong ZhangMin ZhangRuhui Song
- DirectorCongcong TengStarsChen YaoJiuxiao LiXinming YangDiagnosed with ovarian cancer, a 29-year-old journalist who longs for true love ends up writing the biography for an entrepreneur's father, which leads her to embark on an existential journey.