The story is set in the nineties, but the situation has probably not changed much. The male/female ratio in China, especially in the countryside, is getting more and more unbalanced. Female foetuses are aborted, female babies are killed. Result: all those men, without a women to take for a wife and to have sons with. This paradox was clearly illustrated in the film, where a remote mountain village abducts women to marry its single men, while at the same time it is shown that a female newborn has been drowned. The women behind me in the theatre started commenting very indignantly about this: if they lack so many women, why kill female babies? The film makes a very strong statement: the woman is raped by the would-be husband with the assistance of his parents; the whole village, including the government officials, is collaborating to prevent the abducted women from escaping. I can imagine that the Chinese authorities are not very happy with the way its cadres are depicted, nor with the inability of the authorities to deal with the problem.
While the film tells a harsh and cruel story in a very realistic way, it is also beautifully shot in a beautiful mountain area in Shanxi and it is well acted. I don't know if this film will be widely seen in China, but I hope it will be seen at least by the authorities who have the power to change these things. The very strong preference for male offspring is based on deep-rooted traditions: sons are responsible for funeral rites and ancestor worship, and sons have to take care of the parents in the absence of a social security system. The latter is now slowly being put in place in the cities, but is still not in place in the countryside. Also in the cities, more and more women are having well paid jobs and are thus able of taking care of their parents. Still, China is huge, and the catching up that the countryside will need to do will require a lot of time.
While the film tells a harsh and cruel story in a very realistic way, it is also beautifully shot in a beautiful mountain area in Shanxi and it is well acted. I don't know if this film will be widely seen in China, but I hope it will be seen at least by the authorities who have the power to change these things. The very strong preference for male offspring is based on deep-rooted traditions: sons are responsible for funeral rites and ancestor worship, and sons have to take care of the parents in the absence of a social security system. The latter is now slowly being put in place in the cities, but is still not in place in the countryside. Also in the cities, more and more women are having well paid jobs and are thus able of taking care of their parents. Still, China is huge, and the catching up that the countryside will need to do will require a lot of time.