Cry Woman
2002 film by Liu Bingjian
Cry Woman (Chinese: 哭泣的女人; pinyin: Kū qì de nǔ rén) is a 2002 Chinese film directed by Liu Bingjian. It was Liu's third feature film and like his previous two films, Incense and Men and Women, Cry Woman was not given permission to screen in China.
Cry Woman stars the Beijing Opera star Liao Qin in her first film role.
Despite being banned in China, the film was screened at several international venues, including the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival held in the Czech Republic and in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.
Plot
Wang Guixiang (Liao Qin) and her husband (Li Longjun) are a migrant couple living in Beijing. Wang is eking out a career selling unlicensed DVDs when disaster strikes and police confiscate her DVD stocks, and her husband is arrested after getting into a fight over a mahjong game. Forced to return to Guizhou, she meets an old boyfriend (Wei Xingkun), who suggests she take a job as a professional mourner. Surprisingly, Wang finds herself very good at her new job as a "cry woman" and soon discovers that her talents are very much in demand.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Cry Woman” is 2002 film by Liu Bingjian. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Woman, film and Bingjian, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “2002 film by Liu Bingjian” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5190417. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2002.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Cry Woman”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Cry Woman primary sources, Cry Woman archive and Woman research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cry Woman”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Cry Woman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.