International Festival Premiere | In Competition | Best Screenplay Candidate
China, 2024, 123’, Mandarin
Directed by: Shao Yihui
Screenplay: Shao Yihui
Cinematography (color): Chen Jun
Editing: Shao Yihui
Art Direction: Zhong Cheng
Music: Wen Zi
Producers: Ye Ting, Wu Tinting
Executive Producer: Chen Lizhi
Production Company: Maxtimes (Sh) Co., Ltd.
Cast: Song Jia (Wang Tiemei), Elaine Zhong (Xiao Ye), Isabella Zeng (Wang Moli), Mark Chao (Wang Tiemei’s ex-husband), Zhang Yu (Xiao Ma), Ren Bin, Zhang Chi, Zhou Yemang
Date of First Release in Territory: November 22nd, 2024
How have women’s lives changed in China? How do they manage the work-life balance, especially if they find themselves alone after a divorce, burdened with the task of guiding their children’s education, in today’s ruthlessly competitive society? This is the core of Shao Yihui’s second film, one of the auteurs revolutionising Chinese cinema through a feminist lens. In her debut film, B for Busy, she touched upon gender issues, with one of the main characters being a middle-aged divorced woman who lives alone in Shanghai. With her recent Her Story, Shao Yihui struck a deep chord that has sparked widespread debate in China, garnering huge success both critically – where it was dubbed the Chinese Barbie – and at the box office, grossing nearly 100 million dollars. The female viewing public in China is growing exponentially: in 2024, 58% of online ticket purchases were made by women, an 11% increase on the previous year. This surge mirrors a deeper shift, an intellectual awakening reflected in the rising chorus of female voices within the film industry, speaking to the struggles, triumphs, and complexities of womanhood.
Written by Shao Yihui herself, Her Story immediately evokes the concept of “History” told from the female perspective, typical of feminist jargon. The film, although fiction, accurately reflects the experiences of both men and women navigating the contemporary Chinese landscape. Another major success of women-centric cinema in 2024, Like a Rolling Stone, explores the difficulties women face in breaking the chains of submission in a patriarchal society, while Her Story celebrates the rebirth of women once these chains are finally broken. All this is presented with lightness of touch that makes the critique of such a complex reality accessible to everyone, including men.
The plot revolves around Wang Tiemei, a successful journalist who, after divorcing her unemployed husband, decides to give up her career and drastically reduce her standard of living to concentrate more on her daughter, Moli, an intelligent and unabashedly plainspeaking child who often serves as the “mouthpiece of truth” in the film. Tiemei is a modern, practical woman who refuses to let hardship get her down. In order to put bread on the table, she takes a part-time job at a communications agency and moves into an old, shabby building in Shanghai – cheap but with a romantic, bohemian atmosphere. This choice is no accident: Shanghai is a metropolis that blends a futuristic skyline with neighbourhoods where remnants of the past have been reclaimed by gentrification.
Her neighbour, Xiao Ye, is a young musician, naïve and hopelessly romantic despite having been a victim of domestic violence. She is in love with a playboy who shirks away from any emotional attachment. Despite their differences, the two women become friends and allies in their mission to reclaim their lives and independence. On the other hand, the male characters in the film – Tiemei’s ex-husband, who keeps interfering in her life, and who tries to convince her that he is on the side of women, Xiao Ye’s lover, who is incapable of falling in love, and the drummer from Xiao Ye’s band, who becomes Moli’s teacher and later Tiemei’s lover – are weak men, confused by the new dynamics in gender relations. They try, with all their might, to evolve with the times, yet they often appear as caricatures of confusion and fragility.
But amidst all the gravitas, Her Story doesn’t shy away from levity. It challenges several taboos through uninhibited conversations on topics such as sex, homosexuality, consent, and menstruation. References to feminist icons like Ueno Chizuko, RBG, and Frida Kahlo reinforce the message of female empowerment expressed by Tiemei in one of the final scenes of the film: “It is thanks to our optimism and confidence that we can face tragedy head-on.”
Shao Yihui
Shao Yihui (b. 1992) graduated from the screenwriting faculty of the Beijing Film Academy. In 2016, she published a series of short stories, and in 2018, her novel The Last Trial was published, later adapted into the TV series One. Her first film as writer and director, B for Busy, won numerous awards.
FILMOGRAPHY
2021 – B for Busy
2024 – Her Story