Pavilion of Women

Pavilion of Women is a 2001 Chinese-American drama film directed by Yim Ho and written by Luo Yan and Paul Collins. The film stars Willem Dafoe, Luo Yan, Sau Sek, John Cho, Yi Ding and Koh Chieng Mun. The film was released on April 20, 2001 in China and on May 4, 2001 in the United States by Universal Focus. It was Universal's first co-production with a Chinese studio.

Cast

 * Willem Dafoe as Father Andre
 * Luo Yan as Madame Wu Ailian
 * Sau Sek as Mr. Wu
 * John Cho as Fengmo Wu
 * Yi Ding as Chiuming
 * Koh Chieng Mun as Ying
 * Anita Loo as Old Lady Wu
 * Amy Hill as Madame Kang
 * Kate McGregor-Stewart as Sister Shirley
 * Jia Dong Liu as Mr. Lang
 * Shu Chen as Head Servant
 * Hang-Sang Poon as Fat Cook
 * Li Wang as Kang Lin Yi
 * You Jin Xu as Matchmaker
 * Ding Yuan Gu as Mayor
 * Pei Ying Zhao as Midwife
 * Xiao Dong Mao as Liangmo
 * Lan Huang as Meng

Production
The movie is based on the 1946 novel Pavilion of Women: A Novel of Life in the Women's Quarters, by Nobel-prize winning novelist Pearl S. Buck.

Critical reception
Pavilion of Women was met with negative reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a rating of 6% based on reviews from 31 critics, with an average score of 3.1/10. The site's consensus is: "Generating more suds than a soap opera, this adaptation of Pearl Buck's novel sinks under the weight of excess melodrama, stilted performances, and cheesy dialogue." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 26 out of 100 based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

Box office
The film officially grossed 6 million yuan ($720,000) in its first 17 days from 240 screens in 10 Chinese cities. Luo Yan, the producer and co-star, accused Forbidden City, the Beijing distributor, of reallocating the film's receipts against their own film, Purple Day. The film grossed $36,992 in the United States and Canada.