After watching Li Yu's film

When it comes to Li Yu, Chinese people may first think of Pingguo, a film made in 2007 that attracted a lot of attention due to the starring role of Fan Bingbing and its sexual scenes. Li Yu’s third film, Pingguo  was finally released in mainland China after many cuts. All of Li Yu’s films  feature women as the main characters and offer an unflinching perspective of the problems they face.  All of Li Yu’s films have encountered resistance from Chinese film censorship. I began to think about whether Li Yu wanted to use the power of movies to express feminism and fight for the rights of Chinese women when shooting these films against such resistance.

Li Yu was born in Shandong, China, in 1973. Because of her mother's wishes, she joined a local TV station as a host after graduating from university. After a few years, she thought this was not the life she wanted. Li Yu wanted to find a way to express herself, so she came to Beijing and became a director of a TV station documentary program. In 1996, Li Yu directed her first documentary, Older Sister. This documentary tells the story of a pair of opposite-sex twins and describes the patriarchy of children in the family. The girl among the twins is given the name and responsibility of being an older sister, this means that she needs to take care this younger brother who is as old as her. The parents value boys and despise girls. This is a kind of unequal treatment due to gender. In my opinion, director Li Yu's fight for equality for women began with this documentary.

The first Li Yu movie I saw was Pingguo. When I was young, I was aware of the movie, but I only knew that it was a movie that a child like me could not watch, as the movie was notorious  for its pornographic sequences.  So for a long time, I never knew that director Li Yu was good at artful, female-centered movies that offered a new perspective. When I grew up, I watched Pingguo, which was shot in my hometown, Beijing, with many shots even taken in my neighborhood. But when I viewed those familiar scenes, they felt unfamiliar. What is unfamiliar is the story depicted in the movie. I was born and grew up in Beijing. As a Chinese woman, I have never personally felt such a strong gender inequality. I was puzzled by Li Yu’s film.  Was this kind of story true, I wondered? Looking back at this movie now, I think that such a story may have happened before, or it may not have happened. It ultimately doesn't matter. What Li Yu wants to express through Pingguo is that women can save themselves. The point she wants to say is never because of gender inequality, how miserable and pathetic women are, but that we could change the status quo after misfortune occurs. Li Yu is showing us a solution: "Look! It's that simple! It's not difficult to refuse to be manipulated and control your own destiny!"

Her first film was Fish and Elephant filmed in 2000, which is a story about lesbians. Although the film failed to be released in China, the film opened the way for director Li Yu to integrate documentary style into a feature film. This movie was originally a documentary, but it was changed to a narrative because it was too personal. Many of the characters in the movie have real relationships, such as two lesbians, mother and daughter. Their reactions follow both the script and their own instincts. This is the unique style of director Li Yu.

Her second movie is Dam Stree 2005. This is a story that took place in the 1980s and describes a woman who has a child out of wedlock. The protagonist of the story, Yun, was born in a small town in a mountainous area in China. She was 16 years old， she was in high school and got pregnant unexpectedly. The child's father went away from home, and Xiao Yun gave birth to the child by herself. The child was secretly sent away by Yun's mother, and she told Yun that the child did not survive. Ten years later, Yun became an actor in a local opera theater, but she still discriminated against people in the small town because of her unmarried pregnancy. One day, Yun met a ten-year-old boy, Xiaoyong. The boy was attracted by the beautiful and capable Yun. Yun, who had always been discriminated against, also developed a friendship with Xiaoyong until Yun's mother discovered that Yong was the child of Yun, who was sent away back then.

Like Fish and Elephant, Dam Street is another film by Li Yu describing women suffering from gender inequality. The scene of Yun being pushed down and beaten on the stage by her boyfriend's family and wife during the performance made me feel unforgettable so that I can still vaguely see Yun's desperate and helpless eyes when I close my eyes. This is not the first time she has been abused because of love. When young Yun was found to be pregnant, a similar scene happened. No matter what time, the male protagonist in the love story did not appear. The lack of male image runs through this movie as if all sins and mistakes are Yun alone's responsibility.

There is also a scene in the film that makes me remember deeply, and that scene is so real that I can't bear to continue watching. In the last conversation between Yun and her mother, Yun left, and her mother was crying against the wall. Her expression was hideous, ugly, and painful. The director's close-up shots showed her mother's pain incisively and vividly. The mother as a middle school teacher, after her daughter gave birth out of wedlock, she was treated the same as her daughter in the village, she was discriminated against by people. She let her daughter abort and find a home for her daughter's child, and finally learned that Xiaoyong was her grandson in a dramatic way. After she learned the truth, there was an eye-catching scene. When her daughter left, she was also helpless, a miserable, lonely, and fragile woman.

After experiencing all kinds of sorrows and frustrations, just like Pingguo, the female consciousness awakened hazily in Yun's mind. She resolutely embarked on the train heading into the distance and started a new life. This movie made me think, why do we tell stories, and why do we make movies? To express ourselves? For self-entertainment? To save sentient beings? Perhaps what Li Yu wants to do is to show such a story to women who are confused and helpless. We don't have to endure and pay, but we can be brave and independent.

Li yu's films usually have an open ending, which leaves room for imagination. Pingguo took the child and left the boss's house, and left the shelter and torture that the two men brought her. Will Pingguo be happy? Yun left her hometown, her mother, and the lost child. What kind of life will she face? Li Yu did not put the answers to these questions before our eyes. This is the imagination she brought to the audience. People are always tired of their existing lives, but at the same time, they are afraid of making changes. For me, this open ending is a good one. This makes me continue to imagine after watching the film that Yun and Pingguo both live a new and happy life when facing a new life after making changes. I think this may be Li Yu's encouragement to me, and it is also Li Yu's little courage to the confused woman.