The recent box office success of Her Story, a Chinese comedy directed by a woman with a cast of female leads, has led commentators to dub the movie China’s answer to Barbie.
The second feature film by Chinese director Shao Yihui, Her Story revolves around a newly unemployed single mother with a daughter and their young female neighbour, as they explore their experiences and struggles as women in Shanghai.
In less than two weeks, the movie has grossed more than 300m yuan (US$41m). Maoyan.com, a Chinese box office prediction platform, projects it could reach 600m yuan, which would make it the highest-grossing film of the year in China. Currently, that slot is taken by YOLO, another female-led comedy and also directed by a woman.
The success of these films reveals a growing trend in China, where films directed by women, centred around female experiences, are finding greater commercial success.
The shift towards representations of women’s narratives in mainstream cinema has been emergent in China since the 2021 release of Hi, Mom, directed by Chinese comedian Jia Ling, who also directed YOLO. Hi, Mom grossed more than 540m yuan, surpassing the box office earnings of Avengers: Endgame in China. This made Jia the world’s top-grossing female film-maker at the time – a title now held by Greta Gerwig.
“This trend is part of a global movement,” said Zeng Hong, assistant professor for the Academy of Film at Hong Kong Baptist University. “Social media has allowed gender discussions to reach a wide spectrum of the public, combining activism with consumer behaviour.”
On Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media platform likened to Instagram, there are more than 13m posts containing the keywords “Her Story Easter egg”. The Easter eggs these fans refer to are feminist references scattered throughout the film. The main characters cosplay as feminist icons, including American jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, while quoting Japanese feminist and sociologist Chizuko Ueno and American activist Gloria Steinem. The Easter eggs have sparked fans’ enthusiasm for rewatching the film.
“I had a similar feeling watching it as I did when watching Barbie,” said Luo Xinran, a 32-year-old woman in Zhejiang province. The straightforward and accessible representations of feminist ideology were particularly refreshing, she said, as they had been absent in Chinese cinema until now.
“In China, women’s perspectives and experiences are consistently marginalised in mainstream narratives and dismissed by men in popular gender-issue debates,” said Altman Peng, associate professor in the department of applied linguistics at the University of Warwick.
“These films often spark conversations about gender asymmetry or, at the very least, focus on women’s everyday experiences.”
Researchers believe the ascendance of Chinese women’s purchasing power, or the so-called “she economy”, is one of the key drivers behind the unprecedented success of recent female-led films.
“Female audiences have become a quality demographic to which the Chinese film industry is now attempting to cater,” said Zhu Ying, author of Hollywood in China: behind the scenes of the world’s largest movie market.
“This leads to more opportunities for female directors in a traditionally male-dominated industry … the recognition of female purchasing power gives women more voices on how their stories are told, which will have a long-lasting impact on the Chinese film industry.”
The appeal of Her Story has also been evident in the global Chinese diaspora community, with soldout screenings in the US, UK and Australia.
Mia Wang, a 29-year-old who saw the film in Australia, said she wanted to support films made by Chinese female directors.
“I think films created by female directors are easier for me to resonate with. And there are too few Chinese female creators in the film industry.”
