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A Dark Truth Runs Beneath the Surface of The Dating Game
The colorful, almost exuberant surfaces of Violet Du Feng’s Sundance documentary mask a grim, dystopian reality.
There are also government-organized matchmaking events, where party officials welcome participants as important pillars of the nation, because they understand that increasing birth rates is critical towards ensuring “a harmonious society.” They’re not wrong. Du Feng’s film focuses on Hao, a slick and fast-talking dating coach (one of China’s most sought-after, evidently) based in the sprawling, glittering metropolis of Chongqing. These scenes, as our shy protagonists trudge through plazas to anxiously and awkwardly ask total strangers if they can be online friends, play out like some sort of humiliation ritual.
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