Award-winning Chinese actor Lyric Lan is set to headline The Numbered Women, the newest project from rising filmmaker Lam Can-zhao, according to Variety exclusive. Production begins this August on the socially-charged drama, which traces a fleeting yet profound encounter between two marginalized women in a remote corner of Southern China.
Lan, best known for her breakthrough in Empresses in the Palace, will portray a Chinese van driver whose path crosses with a Vietnamese massage worker. Their brief connection becomes the emotional anchor of a film that explores invisibility, labor, and gender on the fringes of modern society.
The director is Lam Can-zhao, a Chaozhou native who has steadily built a reputation for spotlighting overlooked communities. His short films have been recognized at festivals including Berlinale and Pingyao, and his feature debut The Dog marked him as a compelling voice in Chinese indie cinema.
“I left my village at 18, but it took me a decade to return with a camera. I gradually came to understand that my bond with my hometown was strongly linked to my identity as a filmmaker,” said Lam.
The Numbered Women continues Lam’s signature focus on those left behind by China’s rapid urbanization. This time, he turns his lens to adult women navigating the pressures of labor, migration, and social stigma. The project also deepens his pioneering use of the Chaozhou dialect, which he was the first to bring to international festival screens.
Jessica Shi, who is co-producing the film, described the project as both intimate and politically resonant. “We wanted to tell a story that not only addresses gender, labor, and migration,” she said, “but also asks what it means to live a life marked by numbers, not names. The moment of connection between these two women – however brief – is what gives them back their humanity.”
The announcement follows the completion of Lam’s upcoming 2025 feature Moments Like These, which weaves together four interlinked stories set in his hometown village. That film features a special appearance by singer-actor Jin Sha and continues Lam’s exploration of rural childhood and the emotional toll of separation due to migration, divorce, or neglect.
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