THE DATING GAME
2025
Feature Documentary
Directed by Violet Du Feng
Edited by John Farbrother
Producers Violet Du Feng, Joanna Natasegara, James Costa, Mette Cheng Munthe
Executive Producers Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Chandra Jessee, Shizuoka Asakawa, Ken Pelletier, Trevor Burgess
Music by Chad Cannon
Cinematography by Wei Gao
Set in China, where men outnumber women by over 30 million, The Dating Game follows three bachelors—Zhou, Li, and Wu—attending a seven-day dating camp led by Hao, a sought-after dating coach.
Premiered at 2025 Sundance Film Festival
Best International Director Doc Edge Film Festival
Special Mention Best International Feature Doc Edge Film Festival
CPH:DOX
True/False Film Fest
Hot Docs
Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival
Kosmorama Trondheim International Film Festival
Human International Documentary Film Festival
San Francisco International Film Festival
Cinetopia International Film Festival
Nantucket Film Festival
Miami Film Festival
“Loved the provocative Sundance doc, The Dating Game… It’s funny, empathetic, and completely fascinating, with very specific problems and very universal dilemmas.”
–Movie Maker Magazine“The film balances the reality of these experiences with compassion, a sense of humor, and quiet observation, giving the subjects a chance to reflect on their own behaviors and memories. Their dating issues began long before the camera started rolling, and it’s clear that it will continue long after the credits.”
–RogerEbert.com“Entertaining, stylish and snappy in the best possible blend, The Dating Game gives viewers an engrossing, well-informed and wisely balanced look into contemporary China society.”
–The Utah Review“There’s a poignancy to this film and a real sensitivity and empathy in the filmmaking that I found truly delightful as well as revelatory, and it’s a great follow-up to Hidden Letters.”
–Top Docs Podcast“The colorful, almost exuberant surfaces of Violet Du Feng’s The Dating Game mask a grim, dystopian reality.”
–Vulture“An illuminating look at a superpower in the throes of a burgeoning cultural catastrophe—and of a few of its myriad desperate-for-love men.”
–The Daily Beast“Director Violet Du Feng takes a seemingly straightforward premise — a week-long dating camp in China — and slowly unspools it into something far more unsettling: a deeply ingrained cultural crisis masquerading as a matchmaking experiment. What begins as an observational documentary about three bachelors looking for love soon reveals itself as an indictment of a broken system, where romance is less about genuine connection and more about navigating the impossible expectations placed upon both men and women… Both darkly funny and deeply unsettling… It is a film that lingers long after the credits roll.”
–Movieweb
