Eggplant
Yung Chang, Yungfilms Inc.
Language: Mandarin
Based On: Original Screenplay
Project Type: Feature Film (Scripted)
Genre: Crime Drama
Stage of Development: Financing
Estimated Length (minutes): 100
Director: Yung Chang
Director Bio:
Yung Chang is an award-winning Canadian writer, director and producer whose acclaimed films include Up the Yangtze, China Heavyweight, The Fruit Hunters, This Is Not a Movie and the Emmy-nominated Wuhan Wuhan. A member of AMPAS, DGC and WGC, Chang developed Eggplant at the Sundance Institute Screenwriters and Directors Labs and TIFF Writers’ Studio. The China-set neo-noir romance marks his narrative feature debut.
Proposed or Confirmed Talent:
Lucie Zhang (Paris, 13th District, Bloody Tennis), lead actress
Christopher Lew, Director of Photography (Riceboy Sleeps)
Xi Feng, Editor (Universal Language)
Dan Montgomery, producer, MDFF
Christina Piovesan, producer, First Generation
Fanfan Zhuang, producer, Flying Sparrow Films
Nai An, producer, Dream Factory Films
Total Budget: 4.3M
Percent Confirmed: 35%
Currency: $ CAD
List names of confirmed partners:
Telefilm Canada
Game Theory
CAD Tax Credits at 90%
What is this project seeking?
Financing, Sales Agent, Co-production Partner
Logline:
A young con-woman in rural China plans one last marriage scam to buy her freedom, but when a former lover resurfaces unexpectedly, he threatens to expose her operation and forces her to choose between survival and self-determination.
Synopsis:
Eggplant follows Yang Meng, a young woman surviving on the margins of contemporary China through a calculated marriage scam. Under the control of a manipulative matchmaker, she poses as a bride, marries rural men, and stages psychological breakdowns to void the unions—vanishing once the bride price is secured. It is a system she has mastered, allowing her to survive without submitting to the life society demands of her.
Years earlier, Yang is a transient petty thief in a remote northern town. One night, she encounters Wu Kang, a drifting Taiwanese wedding photographer, unconscious after a beating. Against her instincts, she takes him home. His apartment reveals a world unlike her own: black-and-white photographs of empty landscapes, defined by stillness and absence.
Earnest and disconnected from the digital world, Wu photographs staged romance for a living while searching for something more truthful in his personal work. Drawn together by curiosity and difference, he and Yang embark on a brief journey across rural China. Their connection is tentative and uneven—Wu seeks intimacy and meaning, while Yang fiercely guards her autonomy. Just as their relationship begins to deepen, she disappears, stealing his van and returning to her life in motion.
Years later, Yang is deeply embedded in the marriage scam. The cycle of new identities, husbands, and escapes continues, but its emotional toll is mounting. During one arrangement, she becomes unexpectedly attached to a widower, Gong Ping, and his young daughter. For the first time, she glimpses the possibility of genuine stability.
Determined to leave the scam, Yang tries to claim this future. But at a pre-wedding photo shoot, she encounters Wu again. He sees their relationship as unfinished; she knows it cannot survive her present reality.
As the wedding approaches, Wu’s persistence threatens to expose the operation, while Yang faces mounting pressure from those who control her. When her carefully constructed world collapses in public, she must confront the consequences of her choices. Rejecting both the life imposed upon her and the escape promised by others, Yang claims an uncertain freedom of her own.
Eggplant is a portrait of a woman navigating the narrow space between survival and self-determination, where every path carries a cost.
Contact Information: info@yungfilms.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yungfilms/
https://www.instagram.com/yungfilms/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1374747/
