Pavilion of Women (2001)

Intelligent and well-read, Madam Wu Ailian is the envy of all who know her. The Wu family is the richest and most powerful family in her town. Servants tend to her every need, her house and clothes are gorgeous, and she is as beautiful and serene as a traditional Chinese wife could want to be. Yet as the town celebrates her 40th birthday, Madame Wu scandalizes the gathering by announcing that she will arrange a much younger woman to be her husband's concubine. Why would so perfect a woman seek such a humiliation in her own house?

But Madame Wu's manipulations soon backfire. Soon the Wu family's proper facade lies in ruins. When Japanese forces finally attack the town, their traditional way of life is shattered forever and amidst the carnage, Father Andre, an American doctor played by Willem Defoe, is forced to make a fatal, tragic choice, in order to save the lives of his loved ones. More »

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