Focusing on the various images of women created by women directors, this book articulates how the interplay between gender consciousness and ubiquitous censorship in their films produced an ambivalent narrative about women's love and sexuality, and how gender is related to nation in women directors' constructions of female agency in the post-socialist period.

To date, the research on Chinese cinema in the 1980s has been largely restricted to work on the male Fifth Generation directors, ignoring the fact that women directors of both the Fourth and Fifth Generations played a significant role in the development of filmmaking in China after the Cultural Revolution and initiation of the Reform and Open-Door Policy. This book fills that gap.

Gender, women's love, and sexuality are discussed in relation to the wider contexts of China's (re)modernisation and discourses on Chinese feminism since the 1980s. In contrast to the extensive work Western critics have done on “women's film,” women directors, and feminist films, the substantial research exclusively addressing Mainland Chinese women film directors has been confined within a narrow critical perspective. This project contributes to a better understanding of Chinese women as historical subjects and aims at justifying women's contribution to Chinese cinema. Moreover, revisiting women's filmmaking practices during the peak of the Reform and Opening-Up era offers valuable insights into the current landscape of women's cinema in China.