Love Is a Numbers Game in Sundance Doc

In The Dating Game, 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.

A Crisis of Numbers & Connections

The Dating Game

3
/5

Release Date

January 23, 2025

Runtime

92 minutes

Director

Violet Du Feng

Producers

Chandra Jessee, Joanna Natasegara, Mette Cheng Munthe-Kaas, Ken Pelletier, James Costa, Shizuka Asakawa

Pros & Cons

• Highlights the societal pressures placed on Chinese men and women, exposing the systemic flaws behind modern dating expectations.
• The upbeat energy and game-show-like aesthetic cleverly mirror the absurdity of dating as a structured, competitive pursuit.

• The score feels overly directive, using somber or upbeat music to dictate emotions rather than allowing the audience to form their own interpretations.
• The film can get repetitive and doesn’t fully interrogate the subjects’ personal evolution beyond the surface level.

The film immediately grounds itself in historical context, opening with stark text explaining the consequences of China’s decades-long one-child policy: a staggering gender imbalance, with 30 million more men than women. The implication is clear. Love, in this landscape, is no longer a personal journey but a numbers game, where supply and demand shape not just relationships but entire lives.

Against this backdrop, we meet three men — Zhou, Li, and Wu — who enroll in a seven-day dating camp in Chongqing, seeking guidance from married dating coaches Hao and Wen. The camp is framed as a crash course in modern love, with the men undergoing a gauntlet of awkward social interactions, forced confessions, and strategic flirtation exercises. The documentary’s aesthetic mirrors this absurdity, employing an energetic, game-show-like style with an upbeat score that makes their romantic fumbling feel like part of a reality competition.

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But beneath the camp’s manufactured optimism lurks a deeper tension. These men aren’t just unlucky in love — they are fundamentally unprepared for emotional intimacy. They approach romance as a problem to be solved, an equation to balance. In a particularly revealing moment, a dating coach bluntly tells them that “nerds can’t be pickup artists,” reinforcing the idea that relationships are about mastering techniques rather than forming genuine bonds.

Dating, with Women as an Afterthought

For much of the film, women exist only as distant prizes to be won, their voices largely absent from the narrative. When they finally do emerge, the film takes a striking turn, exposing the equally insidious pressures placed upon them.

One of the most haunting sequences follows young women who have turned to virtual boyfriends, AI-generated partners who offer scripted validation without the judgment of the real world. “They don’t see how fat and ugly I am,” one woman says about her digital companion, a heartbreaking testament to how deeply ingrained beauty standards have shaped their sense of self-worth. The women we meet are not “fat” or “ugly” by any traditional stretch; they are simply caught in a system that has convinced them they are undeserving of real love.

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Here, The Dating Game draws a powerful parallel between the men at the dating camp and the women retreating into artificial relationships. Both are victims of an impossible social structure: men are taught that love is about control and strategy, while women are taught that their worth is dictated by their physical appearance. These rigid frameworks leave both sides unfulfilled, perpetually searching for something that remains just out of reach.

Romance as a Capitalist Enterprise

Throughout the documentary, Du Feng subtly highlights how modern dating in China has become yet another industry fueled by desperation and insecurity. Parents gather in public parks to arrange marriages for their adult children. B-roll footage captures the omnipresence of beauty ads, dating apps, and matchmaking services, constant reminders that love is a commodity, something to be bought, sold, and optimized.

This commodification is most evident in the behavior of the dating coaches, who push the men to treat courtship like a strategy game. At times, their methods resemble military training more than relationship advice. This is no accident — the film reminds us that China’s PLA (People’s Liberation Army) is the largest military force in the world, offering poor men the only real chance at upward mobility. In China’s social hierarchy, love and class mobility are deeply intertwined, and for many men, securing a wife is as much about securing their place in society as it is about companionship.

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A Flawed but Compelling Examination

While The Dating Game excels in capturing the absurdities and anxieties of modern dating, it does stumble in its execution. The film has a tendency to repeat its themes rather than deepen them, causing the middle section to feel stagnant. The score is also frustratingly manipulative, using exaggerated shifts in tone to dictate how the audience should feel rather than allowing the subjects’ experiences to speak for themselves.

Despite these flaws, Du Feng has crafted a documentary that is both darkly funny and deeply unsettling. It forces us to ask difficult questions: What happens when love is framed as an achievement rather than an experience? When men are conditioned to see women as puzzles to be solved, and women are conditioned to believe they are unworthy of love?

Ultimately, The Dating Game is less about romance and more about survival in a system that has left everyone — men and women alike — scrambling for connection in all the wrong places. It is a film that lingers long after the credits roll, leaving the unsettling realization that, for many, love is not a choice but a battle they have been set up to lose. The Dating Game screened at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. You can find more information here.