Jia Ling, China’s Box-Office-Topping Director

For years, observers of China’s film industry wondered when homegrown offerings would displace Hollywood fare in the country’s cinemas. That happened last year when movie production shut down in the U.S.—and when China, after enforcing draconian isolation measures, recovered quickly from Covid-19, allowing theaters to reopen much earlier.

Now, with Jia’s sales record, another milestone has been reached. In her directorial debut, she plays a woman who travels back in time to befriend her late mother and set her up with a husband better than what the protagonist’s father turned out to be. Chinese audiences thrilled to the emotional charge of the movie, which set off social media debates about motherhood and the role of women in what’s still a patriarchal society.