Raise the Red Lantern – Gong Li gives decade-defining performance in a ruthless masterpiece

Looking back at Zhang Yimou’s 1991 psychological drama, which is based on Su Tong’s novella, reminds us of the strong impression the film left on audiences in the West. Viewers were drawn to its arguably western‑styled story of a young woman’s desperate isolation within a dark setting that evokes the works of Charlotte Brontë or Daphne du Maurier. Similar to Jung Chang’s 1991 memoir Wild Swans, Raise the Red Lantern opened a view onto twentieth‑century China’s hidden arena of cruelty and misogyny, where elaborate domestic rituals of submission coexist with subtle plotting, resentful manoeuvring and covert denunciation, habits of thought that could easily be absorbed into Maoism.

Gong Li delivers a performance that ranks among the finest of the 1990s, portraying Songlian, a beautiful and intelligent young woman in 1920s China who must quit her university studies after only six months because her father’s death leaves no money for tuition. In the memorable opening sequence, captured in a single continuous shot of Gong’s pale, shocked face, Songlian tells her stern stepmother—who remains unseen—that she is prepared to accept marriage, and then her eyes fill with tears. Her suppressed anger, loneliness and humiliation simmer beneath the surface for the rest of the film.

Songlian is taken to the household of her authoritarian new husband, Chen (Ma Jingwu), whose visage never comes fully into view. The residence functions like a walled city‑state, governed by Chen’s rigid family traditions; Songlian becomes the “fourth mistress”, given her own rooms and attended by her maid Yan’er (Kong Lin), who had hoped for “mistress” status herself. The compound also houses three other women, each in separate apartments: the dignified, impassive “first mistress” Yuru (Jin Shuyuan), who is Chen’s own age and has produced a grown son; the homely, blandly smiling “second mistress” Zhuoyun (Cao Cuifen), mother of a daughter; and the glamorous, haughty “third mistress” Meishan (He Saifei), a former opera singer who clearly resents the newcomer Songlian.

Chen rules the household like a Renaissance‑style Tudor sovereign, perhaps deriving an unspoken erotic thrill from arbitrarily shifting his attention among the women. He follows a strange custom of surrounding the apartment of the favourite mistress with red lanterns, a decision loudly proclaimed with elaborate ceremony by his chief steward. (The “first mistress” never receives a red lantern, a humiliation she accepts without comment.) The mistress currently favoured by Chen also enjoys a privileged foot‑massage performed by a skilled ancient servant, a quasi‑conjugal pleasure.

In this manner, Chen’s authority is enforced through a hypnotic choreography. His mistresses must gauge how far to undermine each other without attracting punishment, and decide how much to submit or rebel toward Chen. A pouting display of resentment might amuse or arouse the master, but if taken too far it could lead to punishment and a loss of face.

Poor Songlian spends much of the day alone, wandering a locked part of the compound where some unhappy mistresses are rumored to have died by hanging years earlier. She initially believes these women killed themselves, but later discovers the reality may be different. Gradually the dysfunctional household begins to resemble, in modern terms, a kind of death cult.

The film’s achievement, mirroring Chen’s, lies in making the audience accept the normality of these events. The odd practices involving red lanterns and foot‑massage constitute the culture of this enclosed world, which Songlian and the camera never leave. Songlian eventually uncovers a scheme against her, orchestrated by the slippery and treacherous Yan’er, who as a lower‑caste figure pays a higher price than the others. Yet the film suggests that at any moment there could be countless poisonous plots and stratagems swirling about. Survival depends on anticipating them and turning them against one’s enemies while maintaining a mask of sisterly politeness.

The result is a thrilling, fascinating study of intimate political savagery and a ruthless struggle to survive. The women are pitted against each other, and their tragedy lies in their failure to realise there is no distinction between them; they are all decorative objects, preserved, cherished or snuffed out like the red lanterns themselves.