Xu Gang

Poor Taxi

Tie Jun, feigning a limp to pull rickshaw, breaks Hai Cheng's leg while ferrying his neighbour Qian Jin. Hai Cheng asks for a large sum of money, but since Tie Jun is penniless, he takes him home and turns to the bedridden Qian Jin for help. They agree that Hai Cheng stays with Qian Jin, and Tie Jun feeds them both till Hai Cheng recovers. Days bring conflicts, outbursts, and reconciliations as many tales of the "three lame men" unfold in three months...

Free and Easy

Under a tin-gray sky, in a hollowed out corner of northern China, a stranger arrives in town bearing magical soap—but smelling it will cost you. Nearby, a pair of unenthused cops try cracking a seemingly simple case. Or not. And you can forget religious solace; the only monk around is not what he seems.

Bel Ami

In a frozen town unwilling to stagnate, a middle-aged man meets true love and decides to come out of the closet. A lesbian couple decides to look for a gay man to marry and have a child. Behind their fiery love stories is an absurd drama of identity politics. The ghost of communism often wanders around the lonely souls.

Manchurian Tiger

A dark comedy follows a Siberian tiger, a dog, a forklift driver, a middle school teacher, a poet, a debt collector and a pregnant woman. Beneath the absurdities of an owner trying to avenge his dog and his pregnant wife is a story about reality.

A New Old Play

On a 1980s evening, the topmost clown-actor of the 20th century Sichuan opera, Qiu Fu passes away in an accident and half-unwillingly sets off for the Ghost City under the escort of two underworld officials. Along the way, he meets old friends. As they recall the past, a history of the living is conjured up.

Youth

Liu Jincai, a taxi driver, falls in love with unemployed Wu Li. Wu Li's parents ask 20 000 yuan to Liu's family to cover their daughter's fee for nurse school in a bigger city, in exchange of a promise of marriage just after graduation. Liu's parents firmly refuse. Despaired, Liu Jincai commits suicide with poison. During Jincai's funeral, beyond his buddies, his brother Liu Jinbao swears to exterminate Wu Li's whole family. Wu's family urgently moved away, Jinbao searches downtown on a motorbike with a knife...

The Hammer and Sickle Are Sleeping

Two robbers befriend with another robber, then decide to team up and robber people in a poor village in China.

Sporadic Diaries

A short film full of black humor, the story takes place in the small town of Hegang in the northeast -- the hometown of first-time filmmaker Jun Geng. A large group of young people wander the margins of society, living on the streets, hunkering down in Internet cafes; they have no money, no faith in the system.