Becoming modern: stories of rural women in Chinese women's cinema

ABSTRACT This article examines stories of migrant rural women in films by Chinese female directors, focusing on two films that span ten years of China's heightening urbanization and globalization: Women's Story (dir. Peng Xiaolian, 1989) and Out of Phoenix Bridge (dir. Li Hong, 1997). It analyses the gendered perspective the films bring to rural women's experience of migration and modernization, arguing that they challenge stereotypes of rural women as headstrong but uncivilized and less modern than urban residents. The films’ depiction of women's resistance toward patriarchal norms and their participation in the market economy enhances the understanding of China's post-reform modernity.