This gorgeous film, set in the arid chill of northwestern China in the 1920s, embellishes the rigid sexual codes that oppress women with a bizarre twist: a young bride is forced to marry a wooden statue of her dead groom. The dreamlike, operatic melodrama begins with the bride's kidnapping and release by bandits and her discovery that her husband-to-be has died in a botched rescue attempt. Now it's just her and her mother-in-law, who arranges for Young Mistress a life hitched to an effigy. It's a blueprint for (sexual) revolution. Sheer physical beauty and political pageant play devilishly with a sobering focus on the harsh rhythms of life in a primitive backwater. Wang Yumei is memorable as the formidable dowager, and Taiwanese pop idol Kao Mingjun plays the bandit chief who has a soft spot for opera and for lovers.