Four women of different age groups are held prisoners in the estate of a rich man. Although they occupy houses of their own and have got personal maids, they are held like slaves, who have to be prepared to do their master services of love, whenever he feels like it. Then lanterns are lit in front of the respective house, just to signal the other concubines that they don't enjoy the master's favor this night.
Songlian is a newcomer in this miniature world. She didn't want to move into it: After the death of her father she was sold to the rich man in order to ease the financial worries of her stepmother. Therefore she can't lead a self-determined life and continue her student's career, as she had intended.
Unlike the other women, who adapt to the prevailing condition and who manage to give to their lives a certain passion or meaning by their continual intrigues and their wooing the master's favor, Songlian soon becomes a silent and introverted rebel. The mourning she shows after her master has deliberately destroyed the flute she once received as a present from her father reveals an obstinate clinging to a happier past. A simulated pregnancy, detected by the family doctor, eventually leads to a break-up with the old patriarch, who feels deceived and dishonored.
But Songlian's conduct only leads to ostracism and isolation, not to liberation. Her insight that the establishment of an absurd set of rules cannot conceal the actual insignificance of such an existence does not find an outlet in an escape and a new beginning, but in an insatiable longing for self destruction:
"To light the candles, to extinguish them, to veil them...It has become a matter of indifference to me...What are we really, those who live here? We are less than nothing. We are like dogs, like cats...or like rats. We aren't human. It would be better for us to hang ourselves in that room..."
It is not Songlian's life though that ends in "that room", but that of the vivacious third concubine, a former opera singer. She dies a violent death, and, ironically, it is Songlian who betrays her, when, under the influence of alcohol, she unintentionally gives away the secret of a love relationship between the singer and the doctor.
When she is conscious again, Songlian has to accept the fact that this way to exit from an unwanted stage can't be considered either. Now she has no other choice than to escape into madness - quite a radical way to cut herself off from the life that surrounds her. In consequence, at the end of the film we just see her wandering around aimlessly, lost in an endless to-and-fro across an empty courtyard which the raised red lanterns in front of the concubines' houses illuminate senselessly.
Songlian is a newcomer in this miniature world. She didn't want to move into it: After the death of her father she was sold to the rich man in order to ease the financial worries of her stepmother. Therefore she can't lead a self-determined life and continue her student's career, as she had intended.
Unlike the other women, who adapt to the prevailing condition and who manage to give to their lives a certain passion or meaning by their continual intrigues and their wooing the master's favor, Songlian soon becomes a silent and introverted rebel. The mourning she shows after her master has deliberately destroyed the flute she once received as a present from her father reveals an obstinate clinging to a happier past. A simulated pregnancy, detected by the family doctor, eventually leads to a break-up with the old patriarch, who feels deceived and dishonored.
But Songlian's conduct only leads to ostracism and isolation, not to liberation. Her insight that the establishment of an absurd set of rules cannot conceal the actual insignificance of such an existence does not find an outlet in an escape and a new beginning, but in an insatiable longing for self destruction:
"To light the candles, to extinguish them, to veil them...It has become a matter of indifference to me...What are we really, those who live here? We are less than nothing. We are like dogs, like cats...or like rats. We aren't human. It would be better for us to hang ourselves in that room..."
It is not Songlian's life though that ends in "that room", but that of the vivacious third concubine, a former opera singer. She dies a violent death, and, ironically, it is Songlian who betrays her, when, under the influence of alcohol, she unintentionally gives away the secret of a love relationship between the singer and the doctor.
When she is conscious again, Songlian has to accept the fact that this way to exit from an unwanted stage can't be considered either. Now she has no other choice than to escape into madness - quite a radical way to cut herself off from the life that surrounds her. In consequence, at the end of the film we just see her wandering around aimlessly, lost in an endless to-and-fro across an empty courtyard which the raised red lanterns in front of the concubines' houses illuminate senselessly.