Post-Screening Discussion Questions - Film Studies - Raise the Red Lantern (1991)

**Raise the Red Lantern **(Dir. Zhang Yimou, 1991, China) is an excellent example of a film that deconstructs how
patriarchal power works and in this sense it is a film that is empowering for women, despite being a narrative *about *
disempowered women.
The film has also been discussed as a metaphor for Chinese state power and therefore also functions a a subversive political commentary.
With beautiful cinematography and composition throughout, this film is also a study in cinematic perfection, with mise-en-scene used to great symbolic effect. The film could be studied just as an excellent example of mise-en-scene.