The Dating Game

Watched at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Decent documentary that explores the modern dating culture and life for a few individuals in China and how the One Child Policy has changed the scene. With a good sense of humor and realism, the documentary focuses on a few group of men who are both endearing and funny to explore. Characters that may be seen as idiotic to many, but still remaining interesting and investing to observe throughout.

Chinese dating aspects aren't talked much and I do applaud Director Violet Du Feng for offering a fun exploration of the subject. However, I gotta be honest, I did wish Feng had explored some of the other aspects like more the toxic aspects of the dating guru and the issues that people are going through. Because of this, the documentary does end up being aimless at times and certain musical choices are pretty distracting.

As a whole, it's a solid documentary that could have been better.

Very interesting perspective on dating in china focusing on the surplus of Chinese men and the issues they face. The documentary shows many aspects of cultural challenges and the increasing gap between Chinese men and women.

We follow dating coach Hao that guide these men through the challenges with dating and a group of men trying to learn how to approach women, creating dating profiles and learning how communicate. Both funny and touching, but also painful as these men are really struggling to adapt to these challenges and obstacles, as well as the cultural issues they face with the stigma around being a single man in china.

Three cheers for Violet Du Feng's latest movie!

This is a terrific documentary as it explores the struggles of Chinese men who are looking for love at a time where they dramatically outnumber women.

Du Feng does a terrific job of showing the humor in the coaching of these men--from new haircuts, to new clothes, and silly pickup lines--without making fun of the men. And there is a startling scene between the dating coach and his wife which is magnificent. It isn't easy to show all of this without casting blame or making fun, but this film does neither. Violet Du Feng treats everyone in this film with great respect. And I just love the very end!

I found that Violet Du Feng explores--without explicitly hitting you over the head--the issues associated with dating gurus, the feelings of the characters, and the bigger issue of the global impacts of a country with a huge imbalance in the number of men and women in society. And, so very importantly, Violet Du Feng takes great care to listen to and respect the characters. Bravo!!

One last point. I watched this film at the Human International Documentary Film Festival. A big thank you to them for carefully curating their films. And especially regarding Chinese documentaries, they do a terrific job of finding films that help people understand China at a very personal, not rhetorical, and deeper level. The Human International Documentary Film Festival is terrific!