Ge Lili

Zhang Ziyi plays the youngest of three generations of women who leads lives in Shanghai. Joan Chen plays the great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. The film recounts this family, the mistakes they make, and a cycle that the granddaughter breaks out of.

A taxi driver is ready to raise an infant abandoned in his cab in Beijing.

On his way to Mecca for his pilgrimage, a young Orphan goes to Beijing, where is starts to learn about the art of jade crafting.

During the Chinese-Japanese war, an archaelogist finds the treasury of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, attracting the attention of the Kuomintang, the Japanese and the Green Dragon gang.

The story is based on the popular novel developed from folk legend. It goes that the Manchurian emperor Qianlong of China (circa 18th Century) was actually the son of a Han Chinese, the subject ethnicity. His brother of blood, Chen Jialuo just happened to be the chief of the Red Flower Society, an anti-Manchu secret society. Chen, a learned scholar, thought he could get his brother turn his back on the Manchu and restore the Han Chinese reign. But the story was ended by brutal clearence of the society members. It reflects one of the dark pages in Chinese culture, that ethics and humanity always become impotent when countered with power.

Taxi driver Xian Feng asks her husband Da Ming for a divorce. A legal technicality forces them to remain together.