The Chinese Widow (2017) poster
2017 · drama · romance · history · war

The Chinese Widow

Directed by Bille August1h 37m2017
ElsewhereIMDb6.32k
  • sombre
Movie DNA

Sombre, steady, measured drama / romance, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

It’s 1941 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has destroyed America’s morale. The US President Franklin D. Roosevelt then decides to risk it all by bombing Tokyo and raise more hope for his citizens. After completing its mission, a unit of the US Air Force is forced to make an emergency landing in China. Its commander Jack Turner (Emilie Hirsch) barely survives but gets rescued by Ying (Crystal Liu), a local widow who will stop at nothing to hide him from the Japanese occupant.

Our read · The Chinese Widow (2017) reads as a sombre, steady, grounded drama · romance · history entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Where to watch
Not on streaming here right now.Check JustWatch Check Letterboxd
More info & search links
Fingerprint

The shape of The Chinese Widow

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want WWII romance of an American pilot sheltered by a Chinese widow.

ends bittersweetit stays with yousteady all the waygrips by minute 18attention 3/5earns its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upchild peril

Skip it tonightSkip if war peril for a child or Mandarin subtitles feel heavy tonight.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself