I Am Not Madame Bovary was playing in a theater in London when my friends and I were there in 2016. Our hosts had said that they had gone for the movie and I remember it was also one of the in-flight entertainment. Even then, it was a wonder what the movie has to do with Frenchman Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary: Mœurs de province. I Am Not Madame Bovary follows the trials and tribulations of a woman who fakes her divorce with her husband. The husband has then taken a new wife and when confronted, accused the woman of being a Pan Jinlian 潘金蓮 for she was not exactly a virgin when they married. Pan Jinlian of course is a fictional character in the 17th-century Chinese novel The Plum in the Golden Vase Jin Ping Mei . A pretty woman, she was not happy with her short and ugly husband and has had an extramarital affair. To the Chinese, being called Pan Jinlian is tantamount to being accused of being an adulteress; maybe more. Apparently, Madame Bovary's name is used to cater for the Western audience who may not be familiar with Pan Jinlian of classical Chinese culture. While both are beautiful and adulterous, Pan Jinlian is the vicious slut that Madame Bovary is not. For all Madame Bovary's affairs, the men seem to be the initiators and pursuers and there are times when she is hesitant. Pan Jinlian on the hand, jumps wholeheartedly into her affair and while Madame Bovary could only poison herself, Pan Jinlian together with her lover, has poisoned her husband. The Chinese title of the movie I Am Not Pan Jinlian 我不是潘金莲 is therefore more appropriate and it also becomes clearer why the woman is so persistent in redressing the issue.
More Chinese movies!
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