This film is a story of something greater than the actual story itself. Set in the 1920s in Northern China, a young girl finds herself involved in something that was not what she had imagined for herself. The main character is Songlian, a 19-year-old Chinese girl, who marries into the Chen Clan only to find herself as one of the four mistresses within a home of tradition and strict order. The geographical setting is appropriate …showed first 75 words of 373 total…

…showed last 75 words of 373 total…objects of status without choices or hopes of some kind of personal happiness only sacrifice. This is reinforced by the conversations about the importance of having a son and how having a daughter was considered a wasted birth. This film is a testament for women living in a feudal society who find themselves powerless over long-standing traditions of their society forcing them to forfeit their hopes of happiness for a life term sentence of reality.