Sundance Doc ‘The Dating Game’ Tackles China’s Gender Divide and Romance in the Digital Age: ‘This Generation of Young Men Are Being Punished Again and Again’

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran 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.” 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.