Raise the Red Lantern

Raise the Red Lantern is set in 1920s China, where nineteen-year-old Songlian, a student whose family can no longer pay for her education, agrees to become the fourth wife of the wealthy Chen Zuoqian. She enters a large household governed by ritual and rivalry, in which the master chooses each night's companion by having a red lantern lit at her door. What follows is a contest among the wives for that signal of favour, with its attendant privileges and standing. The film traces Songlian's passage through the customs of the compound and the shifting alliances and resentments around her, as the household's internal order presses on her.

Zhang Yimou directed from a screenplay by Ni Zhen; Chiu Fu-Sheng produced. The film was the third of the twenty-five features Zhang has directed, arriving between Ju Dou and The Story of Qiu Ju, and stars Gong Li as Songlian alongside He Saifei, Cao Cuifen, Kong Lin, Shuyuan Jin and Ma Jingwu.

Produced on a budget of about one million US dollars, it went on to take roughly seventeen million dollars worldwide, a wide return on its cost. On TMDB it holds 7.9 out of 10 from around 820 votes. A critics' rating of 9.1 out of 10 from thirty reviews places it noticeably above the audience score.