Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

A 9-year-old girl pushes back against period shame, telling adults at the dinner table, “more than half the world’s population bleeds.” Two men fight for a woman’s heart by boasting how many books they’ve read by Japanese feminist icon Chizuko Ueno. A stalker following a young woman home is confronted and chased away by a female neighbor.

These scenes from China’s latest box-office hit, “Her Story,” have become the talk of Chinese social media, where the comedy is hailed by many female viewers as the country’s answer to “Barbie.”

Comments on Douban, China’s biggest movie review site where the movie is rated 9.1 out of 10, praise its unabashed celebration of “awakened” womanhood and bold social commentary on modern China – all delivered with laugh-out-loud humor.

Since its release on November 22, “Her Story” has raked in more than 680 million yuan ($93 million), according to ticket platform Maoyan, as it became mainland China’s top-grossing movie for 17 straight days.

But its witty critique of gender norms has also offended some men on Chinese social media, who have accused it of provoking “gender antagonism” – a phrase often used by state media to police online feminist discourse that authorities deem to have “crossed the line.”

Over the past decade, China’s ruling Communist Party – whose leadership is entirely male – has cracked down on feminist activism. In 2015, five feminists were detained for planning a protest against sexual harassment and, just months ago, a journalist who promoted the #MeToo movement was sentenced to five years in prison on subversion charges.

While less politically charged cultural works around women’s empowerment, like feminist comedy, are still allowed, they’re heavily regulated and often targeted by powerful unofficial forces – conservative men.

Written and directed by Shao Yihui, “Her Story” revolves around the lives and relationships of three women in Shanghai: an independent single mother, her sharp-witted elementary school age daughter, and their new neighbor – a young singer and self-described “sober romantic fool.”

He Zeyu, a 29-year-old book editor in Beijing, has seen it three times.

“I keep rewatching it because I see myself in it,” she told CNN. The last time, she took her parents, who “like it very much,” she said. “I wanted to share the two hours with my friends and parents to feel that same connection, like I’m being seen and hugged, too.”

For Xu, 20, a one-time watcher who gave only her surname due to privacy reasons, the comedy’s focus on “female empowerment” rather than “rehashing women’s struggles,” is what makes it “unique.”

Beyond its fresh, female-led narrative, Chinese moviegoers also praise the film’s “subtle yet brave” social critique on issues such as pandemic-era lockdowns, the decline of journalism — and what they see as the toxic culture of reporting the misdemeanors of others.

In one scene, a teacher criticizes a student for snitching on his classmate. In another, the young singer shows off her stockpile of daily essentials, while a large elephant statue stands in the living room – a silent nod to Shanghai’s weeks-long Covid lockdown in 2022.

“I can’t help but applaud for such clever expressions,” said Wang Rui, a 48-year-old man who recently took his wife for his second viewing.

“I laughed a lot during the first screening, but the second time, I picked up the hidden stuff behind the humor and found myself tearing up several times.”

One online commenter – who identified as a lesbian – was impressed by how the director slipped LGBTQ elements past China’s notoriously strict censors, noting fleeting scenes of rainbow flags and a gay couple flirting in the background.

“It’s rare to see such care and acknowledgment of sexual minorities in a mainstream movie presented in a way that’s subtle enough to pass the censorship,” read her post on Weibo, China’s equivalent of X, which has amassed thousands of likes.

“This is a movie that’s all about gender, yet it goes beyond that,” read a popular review on Douban with more than 8,000 likes.

While “Her Story” has been overwhelmingly celebrated by Chinese women, not all men are fans.

In Beijing, Xu said she saw an apparent couple arguing about the film as they left the theater – which she called “the real movie Easter egg.”

Speaking loudly enough to “be heard throughout theater,” the man told the woman the movie’s “narrative structure is sh***y,” which the woman disagreed with, then walked away, Xu recalled.

Similar anecdotes of men railing at the screenings or walking out of theaters have circulated on Chinese social media – mirroring the conservative backlash seen during screenings of “Barbie” in the United States last year.

“Many plots in this movie have already glorified most men in life … It looks objective and gentle enough to me,” Xu wrote on Xiaohongshu, China’s Instagram-like platform. The post has garnered over a thousand likes.

Yet, even “gentle” jokes seem too much for many.

Users on Hupu, a male-centric Chinese online forum, gave “Her Story” an average rating of 4.8 out of 10. They accused it of “demeaning and gaslighting men,” and shot down any positive comments about the movie – already few and far between on the platform.

It’s unclear how many commenters on Hupu had seen the movie, but Wang and a younger man, Chen Xiaohe, both said on Xiaohongshu that they enjoyed the screening.

“Certain groups of men tend to put themselves in opposite of women and oppose whatever women like.” Wang, the two-time watcher, told CNN. “That’s the toxic stuff,” he added, quoting a line from the movie.

But the film “shouldn’t be labeled as feminist,” he added.

Chen, 29, “really loves the light-hearted and humorous movie,” with “flesh-and-blood” and “fully developed” female characters, he posted on Xiaohongshu. Other male users on the female-dominated platform disagreed.

For Chen, it’s not surprising to see the wave of negative comments on Hupu.

“There has been a huge gap in gender perception in our country for a long time,” he told CNN. “Mainstream men instinctively reject feminist ideas, which makes it hard for them to appreciate this movie.”

This isn’t the first time Chinese men on the internet have bristled at women poking fun at them.

Yang Li, a stand-up comedian known for her razor-sharp jokes about men, is a frequent target of them. Among all her punchlines, “how-come-he-looks-so-average-yet-still-so-confident” hit these men hardest.

Just last month, those still reeling from the four-year-old quip launched a nationwide boycott against China’s e-commerce giant JD for featuring Yang in a promotional livestream.

Caving to the online backlash, the company later issued an apology and cut ties with Yang. Yet, the male commenters didn’t stop there. Instead, they even tried to paint the vocal female comedian as an “evil foreign force” after Western media jumped on the story and showed support for skewering gender inequality.

“Feminist movement in China today is only visible on the cultural front,” said Lü Pin, a prominent Chinese feminist based in New York. “And this is exactly a sign of how much the movement has shrunk.”

However, even the already-restricted voices, such as feminist movies and stand-up shows, often come under attack from conservative men.

“Feminism in China is still pretty weak and hasn’t achieved much. But these men think their (future) interests are already under threat,” Lü said. “They see (the rise of feminism) as a dangerous signal.”

Shao, the screenwriter and director of “Her Story,” said in a promotional video that “feminism liberates not only women, but also men.”

“I believe that if they dig into the root causes, they will realize that they need to stand together with women,” she said.