The Dating Game
Dating is hard — but being a lonely bachelor in China might be even harder. The documentary follows three men searching for love with a dating coach in a society with tens of millions more men than women.
In a rapidly changing China, dating culture has become a massive phenomenon where traditions, family expectations, and modern ideals collide. Violet Du Feng’s documentary The Dating Game follows three men trying to find love in their lives with the guidance of a dating coach. Their stories reveal much more than a longing for romance – they reflect questions of social status, economic pressures, and gender roles that are strongly shaped by society.
The film opens an intimate window into the men’s world, where successes and failures go hand in hand. The camera closely observes everyday moments and deep emotions, while also painting a broader picture of a country where the search for love has become part of a vast economic and cultural machinery. As a result of China’s one-child policy, there are tens of millions more men than women, and this imbalance makes the search for love not only a personal struggle but also a societal one.
Dating websites, organised speed-dating events, and matchmaking fairs reveal how the personal becomes public, and how individual wishes are deeply entangled with community expectations. The Dating Game is a touching, sometimes painful, and occasionally humorous portrait of the marketplace of love, where hopes for a better life mix with competition, insecurity, and a fragile yearning for a shared future.
Rauli Karjalainen (translated by Kati Ilomäki)
Trailer
