5 Gong Li films to watch after Raise the Red Lantern
After Raise the Red Lantern’s 4K run, five Gong Li films for the next nights: Ju Dou, The Story of Qiu Ju, To Live, Farewell My Concubine, and Shanghai Triad, with where North American viewers can press play.
Mina Park
Raise the Red Lantern puts Gong Li’s Songlian back on a proper screen this month. Film Forum holds the New York run through November 19, and Film Movement lists more North American dates into 2027. If that performance is the first Gong Li film you have sat with in years, the next question is simple: what else shows the same range before Hollywood side roles take over the search results.
Zhang Yimou cast her first in Red Sorghum (1988), which won the Golden Bear at Berlin. The Whole Grain Pictures Blu-ray is the clean North American disc path right now; streaming is thin. The five below pick up after that debut and after Songlian. Four are Zhang collaborations from the early nineties. One is Chen Kaige’s Palme d’Or epic, which still belongs on any Gong Li shelf. Availability was checked November 8 for U.S. viewers and shifts often, so confirm before you promise a group night.
1. Ju Dou (1990)
Zhang Yimou and Yang Fengliang put Gong Li in a rural dye mill as a young wife bought by a cruel, infertile owner, then pulled into an affair with his nephew. Bolts of red and teal cloth do as much storytelling as dialogue. It became the first Chinese film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and it remains the closest visual cousin to Raise the Red Lantern if the lanterns and courtyards are what stuck.
Film Movement Classics reissued a Hiventy 4K restoration theatrically in late 2025 and put a Blu-ray out March 1, 2026 through Vinegar Syndrome. Major U.S. streamers were empty on November 8, so treat the disc or a library hold as the path until a platform license lands.
2. The Story of Qiu Ju (1992)
Gong drops the period glamour here. She plays a pregnant peasant who will not stop asking the village chief for an apology after he injures her husband. Zhang shoots contemporary rural China with hidden-camera crowd scenes and almost no costume spectacle. Venice gave the film the Golden Lion and Gong the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. If Songlian taught you calculation inside a closed courtyard, Qiu Ju is stubbornness walking into every office that will hear her.
In the U.S. it was streaming free with ads on Plex, with Amazon Video as a rent-or-buy backup. That is the easiest tonight title on this list.
3. To Live (1994)
Film Movement still marks this family epic Coming Soon. Ge You’s Fugui gambles away a fortune; Gong’s Jiazhen holds the marriage through civil war, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. Cannes gave the film the Grand Prix and Best Actor to Ge You. Mainland authorities blocked a proper theatrical release for years after the Cannes run. The new Udine Far East Film Festival 4K restoration is how a lot of North American viewers will finally see it on a big screen.
Film Movement Classics has the title in its restoration slate behind Raise the Red Lantern, with theatrical plans before VOD and home media. Streaming was not listed in the U.S. on November 8. Put it on the calendar once dates post.
4. Farewell My Concubine (1993)
This one is Chen Kaige, not Zhang, and it still belongs here. Leslie Cheung and Zhang Fengyi play Peking Opera partners whose stage roles bleed into a decades-long triangle with Gong’s Juxian, a former courtesan who marries into their world. The film shared the Palme d’Or at Cannes with The Piano, took the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, and remains the only Chinese-language Palme winner. Film Movement’s uncut 4K restoration already played North American theaters and still screens in repertory bookings.
Stream it on the Criterion Channel or Film Movement Plus, including the Prime Video Channel. Rentals sit on Apple TV, Amazon, and Fandango at Home if you do not subscribe.
5. Shanghai Triad (1995)
This closed the first Gong-Zhang run. Gong plays Bijou, a cabaret singer kept by a 1930s Shanghai triad boss, seen through a country boy’s week of service and exile. The personal and professional split landed during production, and they did not share a set again until Curse of the Golden Flower in 2006. Watch it for Gong as surface glamour that keeps cracking.
Kanopy carries it free with many library cards. Rent or buy on Amazon, Apple TV, or Fandango at Home when Kanopy is locked.
Queue order if you have five nights: Qiu Ju for the easy stream, Farewell My Concubine for the subscription epic, Shanghai Triad on Kanopy, Ju Dou on the Film Movement Blu-ray or a revival booking, To Live when Film Movement posts the theatrical dates. Start with Raise the Red Lantern if you have not bought the ticket yet.
