The Wooden Man's Bride (1994)

Original title

五魁

Directed by

Huang Jianxin

Genre

drama, romance

Country

People's Republic of China

Runtime

1h 53m

Rating

6.9 of 10 from 7 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

In 1920s China, a young woman is forced to marry a wooden effigy after her betrothed dies on their wedding day. She forms a bond with the servant who carries the effigy and they try to escape her oppressive in-laws.

melancholicatmosphericslow-burnromantictragicrestrainedvisually starkfolkloricbittersweet

What happens

The Wooden Man's Bride (Chinese: 五魁; pinyin: Wǔ kuí) is a 1994 Chinese film directed by the fifth-generation filmmaker Huang Jianxin. The film is Huang's fifth feature and the first of his films to be released in the United States. The film was also the first film shot in Mainland China to be entirely financed by Taiwanese producers. The film stars both Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese actors, and was based on the novel by Jia Pingwa. The Wooden Man's Bride was something of a departure for the director, Huang Jianxin, whose earlier works were modern-day satires on bureaucracy as in the black comedy, The Black Cannon Incident, and the science-fiction dystopia in Dislocation. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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