Rating: R | Runtime: 94 minutes
Release Date: January 29th, 2025 (Singapore) / October 22nd, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Director(s): Elizabeth Lo
Writer(s): Elizabeth Lo & Charlotte Munch Bengtsen

I am just a vessel in their lives.

It took three years from the time director Elizabeth Lo discovered the perfect subject to follow into the world of “mistress dispelling” with Wang Zhenxi to finally find the perfect clients with which to document her profession. That’s not to say there weren’t equally captivating examples before Mrs. Li walked through the door. She, her husband, and his mistress (Fei Fei) were simply the most accommodating as far as letting Lo continue to use the material she filmed under what proved to be crucial yet false pretenses.

This is a delicate matter, after all. It’s a unique profession—one that truly only works in a country with similar cultural values tied into the concept of marriage as more than just a contract. When someone discovers their spouse is having an affair in America, pulling the trigger for a divorce is almost instantaneous. Our laws are built in such a way that the union’s dissolution provides compensation to the wronged party and our society is built to more or less champion the scorned so they may find the happiness they deserve away from the cheat.

China is a different story. While the footage Lo splices in throughout Mistress Dispeller to help Teacher Wang’s influence on the Li family breathe might seem unrelated, it actually provides necessary context to the nation’s philosophy on love and why someone would hire her rather than go to court. There’s a gentleman talking stats that state how only 3% of families believe themselves to be happy while 24% say they aren’t. A matchmaker working to conjure love from an algorithm. And public classified ads desiring companionship.

Not only is marriage “final” in ways that would drive people to want to preserve what they’ve built rather than throw it all away, but it’s also a sort of comfort insurance insofar as not wanting to risk being alone or lost in an even worse situation. So many times we hear the Lis and Fei Fei speak about being treated well as though it’s a very rare occurrence. It’s like they are forced to choose between a coupling based solely on kindness or a future as a pariah. That love itself arises from marriage and not the other way around.

There’s a delicate psychological process that Wang wields to traverse this fact en route to hopefully allowing all parties involved in an affair to move forward in ways that benefit each one. She isn’t hired to berate the husband and scare off the mistress. She’s here to analyze the situation, engage with the players, and provide her assessment first and foremost. Because Mrs. Li wants to preserve the marriage, Wang injects herself into their turmoil in a way where she can become Mr. Li’s confidant to discover if he hopes to do the same.

As such, Mrs. Li knows who Wang is from the beginning. Mr. Li knows her only as a “new friend” of his wife who has experience in psychology and a willingness to play mediator. It’s therefore through him that Wang ultimately meets the mistress once he acknowledges his family is more important than whatever spark of adventure and excitement he sought elsewhere. And it’s that same emotional guardedness that made him step out of his marriage instead of talking to his wife that pushes him to ask Wang to do what he can’t: hurt Fei Fei.

Is Mrs. Li pretty much hiring a dispeller to be her husband’s therapist? Yes. It’s a shrewd business plan on behalf of Wang and her peers because it taps into the prevalent silence that people in repressive societies feel. That’s the other difference from this situation to similar ones in America. Where we have no problem telling friends and family about our affairs (because we love to cast ourselves as victims and the victims as the problem), Mr. Li and Fei Fei are on islands of their own. They’re trapped by their own insecurities.

So, Wang lends them an ear. She lets Mr. Li conclude that his love for his wife is more valuable than his love for Fei Fei. She lets Fei Fei conclude that being a mistress will never be enough to satisfy her own needs and desires since she’ll always be the second choice (third if you bring in work). Teacher Wang gets paid the big bucks (fees start at tens of thousands of dollars) because she builds her deceptions on the sincerity of wanting her marks to emotionally evolve. They are the ones who decide it’s time to stop.

That’s surely why Lo got Mr. Li and Fei Fei to sign-off on her film after they discover Wang’s true identity. Three years to find a trio willing to do that seems short considering how vulnerable they’ve allowed themselves to be on-camera for what they were told was a documentary about love in China. That’s still what Mistress Dispeller is in its broad strokes, but it’s easy to see why most would use the manipulation as an excuse to impulsively pull their support. Give them a ton of credit for recognizing their shared story was bigger than their pride.

It’s a testament to Lo for going into the film with an awareness of the ethical tightrope she’d need to walk and Wang’s professionalism and empathy to treat each piece of her clients’ puzzles with the care necessary to never exploit their intimacy. In lesser hands this would be a reality-TV train wreck of entertainment that used its subjects for cheap melodrama and cringe comedy. That Lo chose to instead provide an informative look into this career through the compassionate lens of love’s myriad complexities cannot be overstated.

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Teacher Wang in MISTRESS DISPELLER; courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories.