Leftover Women

I saw this film at the Philadelphia Film Festival last Friday and it's worth seeing....though flawed. This story is about some women who are considered unmarriable....or at least nearly unmarriable. It seems that in China after about age 25, your odds of marriage are very low...and there is a strong societal push for the women to marry. This also brings up a lot of questions....though rarely are they answered. You follow the lives of three of these women...but mostly one of them...on their journey through life.

"Leftover Women" was an interesting documentary to watch. I am glad I watched it. However, this being said, the movie seemed fall into the 'not quite ready for viewing' category, as there were a few scenes which should have been re-shot or removed due to focus issues and the story itself uneven because it focused a lot of the movie on one particular woman....and losing the story of a couple others along the way. Additionally, a re-editing would have helped--removing a few extraneous scenes or tightening up a few others. Despite the flaws, it is interesting to see....but left me with a lot of questions.

I agree with the review from MartinHafer but for me I would add it was a major surprise to see how much the Chinese government has controlled the values of their society, how much discrimination is taking place for some of the wildest reasons, and how the government is apparently sanctioning the discrimination even further.

Interesting that people that don't meet the government standards actually face more oversight from the government as well.

Lastly, how the rules are setup like many other societies to protect the men and have the women subservient to the men.

It is well worth the watch and time though.