In China’s rapidly modernizing metropolis of Chongqing, where traditional matchmaking parks coexist with towering skyscrapers, dating coach Hao is on a mission to help the country’s surplus of single men find love. His story anchors “The Dating Game,” a timely documentary from Emmy-winning filmmaker Violet Du Feng that has been drawing overflow crowds at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
The film follows three bachelors attending Hao’s dating camp, where his methods aim to transform their romantic prospects. Hao, who rose from working-class origins to become one of China’s most sought-after dating coaches, brings credibility through his own success story – having won the heart of his wife Wen, a sophisticated urbanite who now runs her own matchmaking business.
“What draws me to Hao is that he himself is one of those lower class, working class men, and it’s really hard to break through and then become successful,” Du Feng told Variety. “His interest in these men to help them find love, given his own story, is very genuine, and that genuineness is something that I appreciate a lot, despite the approach of how he teaches these men that I may not necessarily agree.”
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The documentary arrives at a crucial moment in China’s social landscape, where single men outnumber women by over 30 million. Du Feng reveals that Hao’s clientele primarily consists of working-class men from rural areas who face particular challenges in the marriage market due to economic constraints. With over 3,000 clients and claims of 400-500 successful marriages, Hao’s methods seem to yield results – though he admits some successful clients disconnect from his social media to hide their use of his services from their partners.
The film, produced by Academy Award winner Joanna Natasegara (“The White Helmets”), emerged from Du Feng’s previous work on “Hidden Letters,” which explored women’s resistance to patriarchal society through a secret written language. “As I was touring around the film, knowing how much gender divide has become in China a really sensitive and big issue, I’ve been hearing from audience [the] whether there’s any good men in the film,” Du Feng said. “I knew that I had to do justice to make a film about men in China… it’s important to start somewhere that can challenge my own bias and can challenge my own stereotypes.”
Du Feng eloquently contextualizes the struggles of her subjects: “Their parents’ generation are the backbones of our country’s economic boom… But because of the residency restrictions, their children were left behind, not having good education.” She adds that “this generation of young men are being punished again and again and again at the cost of the country’s development… They grew up without without proper parenting. They grew up without access to girls.”
While intimately focused on China’s unique social dynamics, the documentary resonates globally through its examination of modern romance. “They are living in this digital world we all are, and the fact that we all kind of have to disguise ourselves,” Du Feng noted. “We all have to put a different kind of makeup on our face in order to put on dating apps and then say something, alter something that’s not necessarily who we are in order to attract.”
The film has enjoyed an enthusiastic reception at Sundance, with sold-out screenings and substantial rush lines. “The audience reaction was so incredible that people were laughing throughout the film,” Du Feng shared. “I hope it’s a laugh that’s not laughing at them, but laughing with them, and at the same time, we can all learn something that’s different from what we thought before.”
However, its release in China remains uncertain amid a challenging market environment. “It’s becoming trickier and trickier because [of] where things are, and it [has] become more challenging to pass the censors in China,” Du Feng acknowledged. “The market is also shrinking because of that, so it’s becoming harder and harder.”
Looking ahead, Du Feng is developing her next project — a series exploring dating coaches globally. “India is definitely one country that we’re looking at, and then there are other countries in Asia that we’re also looking at… beyond that, in the U.S. and also in Europe,” she revealed, suggesting that the themes of loneliness and connection in the digital age resonate far beyond China’s borders.