Cui Jian

During the Japanese occupation of China, two prisoners are dumped in a peasant's home in a small town. The owner is bullied into keeping the prisoners until the next New Year, at which time they will be collected. The village leaders convene to interrogate the prisoners. The townspeople then struggle to accommodate the prisoners. One is a bellicose Japanese nationalist, the other a nervous translator. Will the townspeople manage to keep the prisoners until the New Year?

In the 1990s, a group of students on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts are pursuing their studies and preparing to face the world. China is opening up to the West and the students’ lives are a tangle of love stories and friendships, artistic research, ideals and ambitions brought about by new influences. Caught between tradition and modernity, they have to decide who they want to become.

A polyptych of interconnected stories in different time-zones, shifting between a Yunnan village, a campus, and the Gobi Desert.

Chang-ho, 12, becomes friends with a North-Korean immigrant about the same age who just crossed the Dooman river, border between North-Korea and China. His mute sister and his wise grandfather accompany him through a series of misfortunes.

Sitian, a Chinese American conductor, returns to China to give a concert and to find her three siblings again, after having been separated from them for years after the death of their parents.

A voyage through modern day Beijing in the taxi of the womanising Dezi. His aimless drifting between destinations and women is much like Beijing's own search for identity between perishing ancient values and an uncertain future.