This is a n art film, with beautiful extremely symmetric aesthetics. Like most artistic films it has a bunch of kind of boaring moments and while there is a lot of scheeming going on it is kind of meeh, but we do get to see a young educated woman get worn down, slowly slowly she is worn down to know her place as a the fourth mistress in household where all aim to please the master as that pretty much is the only option for surviving.

A movie that shows very well how little woman where worth and how expandable they are...

While I the sound of this drama is a torchere for the ear of those who do not love Chinese opera, once things the last 10 minutes of the movie made it all worth it, yes even the opera part was put in to place and it was just a perfect ending to this beautiful yet depressing story...