''I Am Not

Pan Jinlian Pan Jinlian () is a fictional character in the 17th-century Chinese novel ''Jin Ping Mei'' (''The Plum in the Golden Vase)'', and a minor character in ''Water Margin'', one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. She is an arch ...

'' (), known in English as ''I Am Not

Madame Bovary ''Madame Bovary'' (; ), originally published as ''Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners'' ( ), is a novel by France, French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The eponymous character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities ...

'', is a 2016 Chinese

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

directed by

Feng Xiaogang Feng Xiaogang (; born 18 March 1958 in Beijing) is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and politician. He is well known in China as a highly successful commercial filmmaker whose comedy films do consistently well at the box of ...

and written by

Liu Zhenyun Liu Zhenyun (born May 1958) is a Chinese novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his novel ''Someone to Talk To'' (awarded the 2011 Mao Dun Literature Prize) as well as his involvement with the many film adaptions of his books. Among the ...

, based on Liu's 2012 novel ''I Did Not Kill My Husband''. The film stars

Fan Bingbing Fan Bingbing (, born 16 September 1981) is a Chinese actress. From 2013 to 2017, she was included as the highest-paid celebrity in the ''Forbes'' China Celebrity 100 list after ranking in the top 10 every year since 2006. She appeared on ''Time'' ...

, Zhang Jiayi, Yu Hewei, Dong Chengpeng and Guo Tao. It was selected to be screened in the Special Presentations section at the

2016 Toronto International Film Festival The 41st annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 8 to 18 September 2016. The first announcement of films to be screened at the festival took place on 26 July. Almost 400 films were shown. Awards The festival's final awards were ...

. and won the award for Best Achievement in Directing (

) at the

Asia Pacific Screen Awards The Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) is an international cultural initiative overseen by the Asia Pacific Screen Academy and headquartered in Australia. In order to realise UNESCO's goals of promoting and preserving the different cultures th ...

. It was released in China on 18 November 2016.

Synopsis

The main protagonist, Li Xuelian, is a woman who divorces her husband in order to side-step Chinese law, which states that married couples can only own one property. In order to purchase another property, Li and her husband concoct a plan to divorce so that they can buy a second property. However, in the process of this, her now ex-husband marries another woman and denies ever agreeing to such a deal with Li. To further outrage and distance himself, he accuses Li of sleeping with other men (prostitution/being Madame Bovary). Li, outraged by this, goes to the local authorities to nullify the divorce so that she may legitimately divorce her husband. Authorities are puzzled by this as Li is already divorced. Li explains her principled approach, first to the local police that she and her husband agreed to divorce under the guise of buying property, but now she wishes to undertake a legitimate divorce. Li crusades for her cause, escalating her issue through each bureaucratic step in the system, from the local police, to local judiciary, to local magistrate, then to the Provincial authorities. During Li's journey, she tries to hire her friends as hitmen to kill her ex-husband, is accused by her ex-husband of fooling around with other men, is arrested and sent to re-education camps, falsely led into an intimate relationship with a man in an effort by local authorities of ceasing her crusade, goes all the way to Beijing to protest her principled stance on nullifying her divorce. During her persistent crusade, her ex-husband dies, leading Li to lament over her, now, inability to seek retribution for her ex-husband's illicit affair and branding her a prostitute. The movie concludes with Li settling alone in Beijing, running a noodle restaurant where she encounters one of the local officials who impeded her during her early crusade. She recounts her tale with the official (who was fired as a result of her crusade) and reveals that she initially divorced not to buy property, but so they could have two children. Li was pregnant at the time of the divorce and a divorce would mean she and her ex could "re"-marry and have another child. However, during her divorce and crusade, she had a miscarriage and lost the baby. The movie concludes with Li accepting her fate and life for what it is and lets go of her angst and hate.

Cast

as Li Xuelian, a village woman * Da Peng as Wang Gongdao, the judge * Yin Yuanzhang as Gu Daxing * Feng Enhe as retired Chief Justice * Liu Xin as Justice Xun * Zhao Yi as Police Chief * Zhao Lixin as County Chief Shi Weimin * Jiang Yongbo as Mayor Cai * Zhang Yi as Jia Congming * Liu Hua as Lao Hu *

Li Zonghan Calvin Li or Li Zonghan (; born 7 November 1976) is a Chinese actor of Manchu ethnicity. Li is noted for his roles as Wu Yong and Yang Zhenjiang in the television series and film ''All Men Are Brothers'' and ''Hushed Roar'' respectively. Life ...

as Qin Yuhe * Guo Tao as Zhao Datou, Xuelian's classmate *

Huang Jianxin Huang Jianxin (born 14 June 1954) is a Chinese filmmaker. He also writes film scripts under the pen name Huang Xin. He is normally considered part of the fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers (a group that includes Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and Ti ...

as Governor Chu * Gao Ming as leader * Yu Hewei as Zheng Zhong * Zhang Jiayi as the magistrate * Tian Xiaojie as Secretary of Mayor * Li Chen as Police officer * Hu Ming as Hospital driver * Fan Wei as Guo Nong, orchard owner *

(''uncredited'') as narrator

Production

''I Am Not Madame Bovary'' is

and

's second collaboration together, twelve years after their first, ''

Cell Phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

''. On 14 March 2016, a trailer was released via the film's producers.

Release

The film was released theatrically on 18 November 2016.

Box office

The film has grossed in China. It has grossed worldwide.

Reception

Critical reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 49 reviews, and an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''I Am Not Madame Bovary''s sly social commentary and well-constructed story anchor director Feng Xiaogang's visually experimental approach." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Accolades

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:I Am Not Madame Bovary 2016 films 2016 comedy films Chinese comedy films Films based on Chinese novels Films directed by Feng Xiaogang Films with screenplays by Liu Zhenyun Huayi Brothers films Asian Film Award for Best Film winners