Hu Tong Communications

China's rapid changes from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, as seen through the lives of four performers in a theater troupe.

A small town pickpocket whose friends have moved on to higher trades finds himself bitter and unable to adapt.

Two disaffected, unemployed Chinese youth drift through life on the streets of their industrial town, their paths crossing with that of a local young singer and dancer working for a liquor company as a spokesmodel.

In a future century, after the apocalypse, Gui Dao dynasty controls continental Asia. Zhuai and his younger brother Mian are captured and sent to "Prosperity Camp" for reeducation. They soon discover that the camp's aim is to brainwash people with propaganda. Five years later, there's a change in government and they are free again. Zhuai falls in love for the beautiful Xuelan and together they take her to an old industrial city, now deserted. They get themselves a place to live in an abandoned apartment and try to rediscover the little pleasures of life.

The film gets under the skin of a very marginalized group: recent immigrants to Hong Kong from Mainland China. Belying the expectation that they will belong in a territory now returned to China's sovereignty, they find themselves lonely, frustrated, poor, and employable only in the most menial jobs, from elevator service staff to prostitution.

Three provincial girls departed for Beijing. Yu Quin works as a hostess in a night-club, leaving her two-year-old daughter in someone else's care. Hu Jin is a bit part player and runway model. Zun Ji worked as a dancer in a discotheque, but returned to her hometown after she became a drug addict.