Raise the Red Lantern: Zhang and Gong’s Masterful Melodrama Returns in 4K

The fourth of nine collaborations between filmmaker Zhang Yimou and star Gong Li, Raise the Red Lantern tells the tale of a young woman who becomes the fourth wife of a wealthy man in 1920s China. Initially determined to remain above the fray of the household, she gradually succumbs to the never-ceasing struggle for power that characterizes life as a concubine; her increasingly desperate efforts to destroy her rivals threaten to destroy everything she values about herself. Now available in a new 4K restoration for its 35th anniversary, Raise the Red Lantern is as visually stunning as it is emotionally devastating; every image is perfectly crafted while still allowing the raw intensity of the film’s feelings to shine through.

This is a Man’s World

Nineteen-year-old Songlian (Gong Li) attended university for six months before her father died and the money ran out. Back home with her stepmother and with little in the way of prospects, Songlian resigns herself to becoming a rich man’s concubine; after all, “Isn’t that a woman’s fate?” She marries Master Chen (Ma Jingwu) and moves into his sprawling compound, where intricate rituals and customs are followed simply because they have been for generations; every time Songlian asks why, the stock response is that this is how it has always been done.

Songlian is the Fourth Mistress of the household, and at first, she appears to be the new favorite. When her husband decides to spend the night with her, red lanterns are raised outside her house, and she’s pampered with foot massages and other special treatment. But such luxuries are not a guarantee. Each evening, Master Chen summons his four wives and decides which one’s bed he will grace with his presence via the formal presentation of a red lantern, bathing the chosen one in the warm glow of his favor while the others look on with resentment.

Songlian might be the newest, youngest, and most beautiful of the wives, but she has a lot to learn about maintaining her place in the Chen household, including which, if any, of the other women she can trust. Her personal maid, Yan’er (Kong Lin), is not one of them; disappointed that she was not chosen to be the Fourth Mistress, she would do anything to sabotage Songlian, including conspiring against her with the other wives.

Trapped in a Gilded Cage

Raise the Red Lantern is a plush jewel box of a film that contains a rotten, cruel core; the glowing lanterns and silken fabrics and ornate architecture cannot mask the rampant misogyny at the center of the Chen household. The women are largely confined to their individual houses within the estate; when Songlian cannot be found at home because she’s playing mahjong with the Third Mistress, former opera singer Meishan (He Saifei), she loses the privilege of having Master Chen’s attentions for the evening. Punishments for breaking the rigid rules of the household range from having one’s lanterns covered with heavy black shrouds to being hanged in an isolated tower room known as the “room of death.” The women whisper and plot and stab each other in the back, treating each other as enemies, when the real enemy is the patriarchal society that allows a rich man to collect women and treat them as beautiful, disposable objects that are only valuable to him as long as they can give him sons.

The emotional resonance of Raise the Red Lantern is heightened further by its breathtaking beauty. Cinematographer Zhao Fei does wonderful work emphasizing the film’s striking contrasts in color; few shots in cinema history have ever been more stunning than those showing the red lanterns burning like dots of fire amidst the cool blue night. The film is divided into chapters according to the changing of the seasons; its climax takes place in the dead of winter, with white snow blanketing the ground like a thick, warm quilt, its visual purity only emphasizing the ugliness of the horrors unfolding in its midst.

Almost the entire film takes place within the Chen compound, which is enormous yet still claustrophobic, like a luxuriously appointed prison. Master Chen himself is barely seen; when he does appear in frame, he is shot over the shoulder or in long shots that largely mask his face, reminding us that while he may be the most important person in the household, he is far from being one of the most important ones in this story. Those would be the women, especially the radiant Gong Li. She is marvelous as Songlian, a stubborn, spirited woman who initially sets out to make the best of her unfortunate lot in life, but whose strenuous efforts to maintain her place in the Chen household exhaust her to the point that she finds herself contemplating suicide, convinced that the freedom of death would be better than continuing to live such a slavish life. Watching her gradually succumb to the emotional warfare constantly being waged within the Chen household is heartbreaking, and while you hold out hope for a happy ending, it’s clear that this is no fairy tale; there’s no knight in shining armor riding to Songlian’s rescue, and in such a male-dominated world, she’d need one to escape her fate.

Conclusion

Considering how gorgeous it is to look at, and how subpar previous physical media releases have been, it’s hard to think of a film in recent memory more deserving of a shiny new 4K restoration than Raise the Red Lantern.

The new 4K restoration of Raise the Red Lantern opens at Film Forum in New York on November 6, 2026.