Mistress Dispeller

Synopsis

Desperate to save her marriage, a woman in China hires a “mistress dispeller” — a growing profession in China’s larger cities — to break up her husband’s affair. The expert, Wang Zhenxi, or “Teacher Wang”, conspires with the woman and her adult children to insinuate herself into their family. She surreptitiously becomes a close confidante of the cheating spouse and his mistress, all part of her intricate master plan to restore the relationship between husband and wife.

With Mistress Dispeller, award-winning filmmaker Elizabeth Lo (Stray) has crafted an enormously fascinating and multi-faceted psychological portrait. From its carefully observed perspective, the film captures both the love triangle’s most private and intimate moments as well as Wang’s skill in slowly drawing out the characters and subtly manipulating their feelings. Mixing extreme closeups with images of China’s urban landscapes, Mistress Dispeller is an absorbing docudrama that lifts the curtain on a rarely seen segment of Chinese bourgeois society.