Differences between the book and the film
I just finished reading the book and noticed that it had some differences from the movie and would like to share some of the differences. I have left out some extremely minor ones which I feel are not too important.
Massive spoilers for the film and book below.
The first thing I noticed from the book, is that red lanterns aren't in the book at all, there is lanterns but simply for lighting the rooms, the whole red lantern tradition is something the movie made up.
The feet massages that the wives get after spending a night with the husband is another thing that movie added that was not in the source material.
The wife that spent the night with their master got the choice for dinner the next day was also not in the book at all.
The first wife's character got a massive change in the movie, in the book she enjoys starting arguments and does very occasionally spend the night with the master.
Instead of their being a constantly locked room where the dead wives of the master were, there was a well in the north courtyard. Also the fourth mistress had hallucinations when looking inside the well, seeing a hand coming out and hearing a voice telling her to join them down there.
The fourth wife's maid dies a different death in the book, instead of having red lanterns in her bedroom, which have no symbolic meaning in the book, she instead places a curse on toilet paper for the fourth wife to die and the fourth wife finds it due to the maid forgetting the flush and forces her to eat it or tell the master about what she has wished upon her. The maid decides to eat it and dies of typhoid a few days later.
When the maid dies, the fourth wife feels very guilty and hallucinates that the maid opened her window went towards her bed and takes a sharp hair piece out of her hair and stabs her with it. When the fourth wife snaps out of it, she finds the window open and sees a sharp hair piece lying on her bed, hinting at her slow transition to insanity.
When the third wife is killed she is taken to the well and thrown into it. The fourth wife sees this through the window and this is what turns her mad.
However, the ghost prank in the third wife's room is not in the book at all and was created by the director.
When the fifth wife arrives, the ex fourth wife has gone mad and circles the well constantly all day long saying "I wont jump in."