The Painted Veil
A dedicated British doctor battles a deadly cholera outbreak in a remote Chinese village while confronting the betrayal of his unfaithful wife, forcing him to choose between duty and heartbreak.
“Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people.”
Synopsis
A British medical doctor confronts a cholera outbreak in a small Chinese village while simultaneously dealing with a loveless marriage to an unfaithful wife at home.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 36
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Alexandre De FranceschiShot by Stuart DryburghScored by Alexandre DesplatDesigned by Juhua Tu
Box Office
2006 · Box office
⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.4× its budget
Why 2.5×?
Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).
Worldwide gross
$26.9M
US & Canada: $8.1M — 30% of worldwide · International: $18.9M (70%)
Also known as
- Der bunte Schleierde
- Le Voile des illusionsfr
- Il velo dipintoit
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Cast & Crew
36 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Naomi Watts
as Kitty Fane
Edward Norton
as Dr. Walter Fane
Liev Schreiber
as Charlie Townsend
Catherine An
as Hostess
Toby Jones
as Mr. Waddington
Bin Li
as Te-Ming
Diana Rigg
as Mother Superior
Bin Wu
as Student 1
Anthony Wong Chau Sang
as Colonel Yu
Alan David
as Mr. Garstin
Xia Yu
as Wu Lien
Marie Laure Descoureaux
as Sister St. Joseph
Supporting cast
14Juliet Howland
as Dorothy Townsend
Sally Hawkins
as Mary
Ian Renwick
as Geoffrey Denison
Li Bin
as Te-Ming
Zoe Telford
as Leona
Lorraine Laurence
as Sister Maryse
Maggie Steed
as Mrs. Garstin
Li Feng
as Sung Ching
Yan Lu
as Wan Xi
Bill Marcus
as Businessman in Colony Club
Maurice Herschtal
as Businessman in Colony Club
Shobauro Hiratsuka
as Businessman in Colony Club
John Cann
as Businessman in Colony Club
Yin Qing
as Student 2
Directors
1Writers
2Producers
4Other crew
6Parents Guide
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Not currently streaming on any platform we track.
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