Dir. Zhang Yimou · 1991 · 125 min · 4K restoration in cinemas
A young woman, Songlian (Gong Li), is married into a wealthy household as one more wife of a master we barely see. The compound is run by one custom: each evening, red lanterns are lit at the courtyard of the wife he will visit that night, and the favour, the food and the small privileges that follow belong to her. That is the whole premise, and the film is content to let it do the work. It is adapted from Su Tong's novella Wives and Concubines by screenwriter Ni Zhen, and it was shot at the Qiao Family Compound near Pingyao in Shanxi province.
Nearly every account of the film begins with how it looks, and the new 4K scan gives that talk fresh evidence. Empire credits the whole ensemble and cinematographer Zhao Fei, and calls the film a study of how women take part in their own subjugation. In Little White Lies, Angel Sun reads the colour as the plot itself: red turns into a mechanism of control, and the one flash of blue, in Songlian's hair ribbons on her first day, marks what she is about to lose.
an uncompromising study of the part that women play in their own subjugation
Empire
Reviews from the original release agree on the look. Roger Ebert gave it a thumbs up and framed it as a melodrama that lives in the eyes, with cruelty underneath. The Washington Post's Desson Howe called it breathtaking in aesthetic terms. The film took the Silver Lion at Venice and an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, and it won the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language.
Not everyone was won over. The Washington Post also ran a negative review in 1992 (by Hal Hinson, as the film's reference pages note), and even admirers describe a film that is more about arrangement than about surprise: a closed world with strict rules, watched at a measured pace. If you want a plot that keeps changing direction, this is not that. If you want a portrait of a system, it is one of the great ones.
The 4K work was carried out by the Udine Far East Film Festival, from the original image and sound negatives under Zhang Yimou's supervision, and finished in 2024 at L'Immagine Ritrovata. According to the distributor, a vintage positive from the film's 1991 Venice screening was used as the colour reference, which matters more here than for most films. The picture is 1.85:1, with stereo and 5.1 sound options.
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The restoration is being distributed in North America by Film Movement, which lists a cinema run from 6 November 2026 on the date of the 35th anniversary. Little White Lies reports that it is also arriving in UK cinemas on the same date. A 4K disc edition has also been listed by a specialist label, and is flagged as Region C, so check that your player can read it before you buy. Availability varies by country, so check your local cinema listings.