Cao Xueqin

A timeless and titillating tale of the immoral private lives of the royal court's high officials. All the bed and body hopping is not exclusive to the family, either. Their maids and servants get involved as well, leading to flesh, fibs, and suicide, among other things. Taken all together, this is an all-time classic of sumptuous sexuality.

Pao-yu is in love with his cousin, Lin Tai-yu, but his family has other marital plans for him that will leave both broken-hearted.

A musical adaptation of 'Dream of the Red Chamber'

Based on the famous 18th century Chinese novel with the same name. Set during the 1700s in China, a prominent family loses its good luck when one of the sons loses the jade chip that was embedded in his mouth.

Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu get to know Xue Baochai at the Jia Mansion. The three young people experience all kinds of human affections in the world, and witness a series of open and secret struggles of the rise and fall of a huge family.

The Ching Dynasty novel The Dream of The Red Chamber is not only the most widely read, but also the most filmed book in Chinese history. The sprawling love story has proven a challenge to many filmmakers, but this version is acclaimed as the most successful. A sumptuous feature which took three years of planning and another for production, it was a hugely popular and critical hit which still stands out as a classic of both 18th century literature and 1960s moviemaking.

A Chinese serial feature film, released in 6 parts (8 episodes) between 1988 and 1989. The film adapts the major events and incidents of the novel of the same name, depicting the fate of Jia family.

Dream of Red Mansions is a spectacular version of a Kunqu opera (UNESCO recognised Kunqu as a ‘Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’), brought to the screen by an acclaimed writer-director. It’s adapted from one of China’s most popular novels, written in the mid- 18th century, which charts the rise and decay of a noble family.

Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the big four of classic Chinese novels, has been adapted for film and television dozens of times over the past decades. Yet this sui generis Great Wall production daringly transposes the setting to modern-day 1950s. The contemporised story revolves nonetheless around the love triangle between Jia Baoyu and his two cousins. Both girls love him but his heart belongs to only one. The ending, however, is remarkably changed to separation of the lovers as a result of war—the war that was surely still haunting the minds of the filmmakers at the time when the film was made. Not only did Great Wall pour money into building extravagant sets just so to recreate down to the smallest detail the grandeur of the legendary Jia mansion, but the film also boasted of its lavish costume designs for the diverse female cast. (From Hong Kong Film Archive)

Dream of the Red Chamber, first released in 1987, was a television series produced by CCTV, adapted from the classic 18th century Chinese novel of the same name. It gained enormous popularity for its music, cast, and plot adaptation, being regarded by many within China as being a near-definitive adaptation of the story.

Jai Baoyu is a male heir who grew up in a wealthy feudal clan dominated by women. His love affairs with his cousins Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai happened in the midst of his family's struggle to remain influential.

Jia Yucun, a scholar, is exiled to Yangzhou and becomes a guest of the salt inspector, Lin Ruhai. He teaches Lin's daughter, Lin Daiyu, and escorts her to the Jia family's Rongguo Mansion. Jia Yucun helps Daiyu's uncle, Jia Zheng, and is reinstated. Daiyu becomes close to her cousin, Jia Baoyu, but Wang Xifeng, a daughter-in-law, schemes to marry Baoyu to Xue Baochai, a relative of the family's matriarch. When Baoyu falls ill after losing a jade, the family forces him to marry Xue Baochai, pretending that she is actually Daiyu. Daiyu is heartbroken and dies shortly after. The family eventually declines, and Baoyu becomes a monk.

Childhood friends Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu fall deeply in love, but family obligations force Baoyu into an arranged marriage, leading to heartbreak, tragedy, as he rebels against his predetermined fate.