Letter from an Unknown Woman

Letter from an Unknown Woman is a 2004 Chinese film written and directed by Xu Jinglei and is her second feature film as director after 2002's My Father and I. The film is an adaptation of Stefan Zweig's 1922 novella of the same name which was also adapted in 1948 by screenwriter Howard Koch. The film stars Xu and Jiang Wen as lovers during the 1930s and 1940s in Beijing. The film was produced by Asian Union Film & Media. Xu Jinglei won the Best Director award for the film at the 2004 San Sebastián International Film Festival. Script Originally the film's story was to have taken place in more recent times, spanning the 1970s through the 1990s. However, Xu moved the film's setting several decades back in time, to avoid dealing with social issues such as unmarried mothers and prostitution during the Cultural Revolution that ended in the 1970s, to avoid arousing the suspicions of Chinese censors. Xu also decided to use Beijing as the primary setting over cities like Shanghai (which she felt was overly colonial), Chongqing, and Nanjing (both of which were too turbulent during the war to adequately serve as the setting for a love story). Additionally, Xu felt that Beijing would offer a distinct visual perspective that would have been absent in other Chinese cities.