The Third Wife
第三夫人と髪飾り
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A fourteen-year-old becomes a landowner's third wife in 19th-century Vietnam; withdrawn from Vietnamese cinemas after four days.
Northern Vietnam, in the nineteenth century. May is fourteen when she arrives by boat, dressed in red, to become the third wife of Hung, a rich landowner in a silk-growing valley and a man old enough to be her father. On the wedding night he has sex with her: the sexual abuse of a child, arranged by the adults around her as custom. The order of the household is soon plain. Ha, the calm and elegant first wife, has given Hung his only son, Son, and runs the house; Xuan, the second wife, has three daughters and less standing. A wife is secure only once she has borne a boy, and May understands that this is what she is for. The older wives are kind to her.
May becomes pregnant and prays for a son. She finds out that Xuan is secretly the lover of Son, her husband's grown son. Ha is pregnant again too, and when Ha miscarries, May, who had prayed that her own child would be the son, believes it is her fault. It is Xuan who comforts her. Drawn to Xuan, May kisses her; Xuan gently turns her away, saying she loves her like a daughter. May gives birth to a girl.
Son is made to marry a girl of about May's age. In love with Xuan, he threatens to take his own life rather than marry, and after the wedding he will not touch his bride. His father tries to undo the marriage, but her family will not take her back, and the girl, disgraced, takes her own life.
By the river, May holds her baby daughter and thinks of ending the child's life. The film ends with one of Xuan's daughters, the girl who once said she wanted to become a man and have many wives, cutting off her long hair.
Starring
Nguyen Phuong Tra Myas May
A fourteen-year-old married off as a landowner's third wife, whose only security is to bear him a son.
May’s story
May is fourteen when she is brought upriver to become the third wife of Hung, a landowner old enough to be her father; what the household arranges as a wedding night is the sexual abuse of a child. She learns that a wife is secure only once she has borne a son, and when pregnant she prays for one. She discovers that Xuan, the second wife, is secretly the lover of Hung's grown son, and when Ha, the first wife, miscarries, May blames her own prayer; Xuan comforts her. Drawn to Xuan, May kisses her and is turned away. She gives birth to a girl. After Son's bride, a girl her own age, takes her own life, May sits alone with her baby and thinks of ending the child's life. The film does not say what she does.
Tran Nu Yen Kheas Ha
The first wife, mother of the family's only son, who runs the household and becomes pregnant again.
Mai Thu Huongas Xuan
The second wife, mother of three daughters, who looks after May and is secretly the lover of her husband's son.
Le Vu Longas Hung
A wealthy landowner in the silk country who takes a fourteen-year-old as his third wife in the hope of another son.
Nguyen Thanh Tamas Son
Hung's grown son by his first wife, in love with Xuan, who refuses the bride chosen for him.
Why it matters
The Third Wife shows a system in which a girl's worth depends on bearing a son, and counts the cost to everyone inside it: a child bride, two older wives competing quietly for a man's favour, a son forbidden to love the woman he wants, and another girl who dies because a marriage failed. Ash Mayfair based it on her great-grandmother, who was married at fourteen. The film won prizes at Toronto, San Sebastian and Chicago. In Vietnam it opened in May 2019 and was pulled from cinemas four days later, after criticism that its lead actress, who was thirteen during filming, had been cast in sex scenes; the producers cited online abuse aimed at her and her family, and the filmmakers were fined for releasing an unapproved cut. The dispute over its making now sits beside what it says. It ends with a girl cutting her hair, a small refusal that is the only freedom it can imagine.