Director Zhang Yimou has done some propaganda, but file Raise the Red Lantern as part of the subversive side of his CV. And that subversion comes through Songlian (Gong Li), a music university student who becomes someone’s mistress. Fellow mistress Zhaoyun (Cao Cuifen) welcomes her but she also has time to wander around the compound. That curiosity helps find out secrets about maid Yan’er (Kong Lin) and second mistress Meishan (He Saifei). But in general, living in Republican China means navigating power dynamics that might just overwhelm our antiheroine.

Films become cloudy memories, like the ones I have of Red Lantern, which I saw years ago. I remember parts of the mahjong scene and the ending, memories of a China willingly looking inward. And sure, there’s a lot of self critique here, this restoration keeping the film’s sepia tone aesthetic. An insular home keeping customs even though outsiders like Songlian are bringing change, or trying to anyway. The sound design of snuffing the lanterns feels atomic, mutually assured destruction playing out in modern fiction. The mutually assured destruction here happens when Songlian realizes what happens by entering this secretly female-run household.

One day, she walks into Yan’Er and Master Chen (Ma Jingwu) in her own bed, shocking her – that’s not the only secret that Yan’Er has. Raise the Red Lantern’s climactic scene is her walking into Yan’Er, this time the latter having lanterns in her quarters, which is forbidden. That Powell and Pressburger red dominates the screen and has elastic meanings here. Mainly the sexual desire that never fulfills anyone. And for Songlian, that lack of fulfillment turns into rage when she finds that Yan’Er has a third secret. Zhaoyun is plotting behind her back.

Raise the Red Lantern’s aesthetic is warm, counterbalancing the coldness of the dated, courtly world that Songlian willingly signed up for. Gone are the springtime yellows and greens, although the other mistresses are a welcome presence with their empire velvety purples. And again, Songlian discovers another secret – that Meishan likes her because she’s too busy cheating with Doctor Gao (Cui Zhihgang). Aside from its aesthetic of complementary opposites, this restoration still captures the performance that made Gong Li a star. Alongside her is the rest of the cast who play characters who brazenly break the rules – maybe, one day, they’ll cross a bridge too far.

Raise the Red Lantern’s characters cross bridges on infrastructure that seems to have been present for millennia, crumbling to change. Zhaoyun runs to Songlian’s doorstep the same way mistresses like them walk and run into each other despite orders to stay indoors. The other characters are complacent with their minor deviances but Songlian refuses to be silent, which gets everyone in trouble. But the film and the source material doesn’t blame her for the destruction of the court’s already shaky dynamics. As the film progresses, Songlian goes into a downward spiral. And that spiral might take down a court and even a country’s regime with her.

Film Movement is doing a roadhouse showcase of Raise the Red Lantern, stopping by in California and Massachusetts this weekend.