Caught by the Tides

This is a long-form, in-depth podcast hosted by Luo Yonghao, with each episode running three to five hours. We engage in extended conversations with figures shaped by the currents of our time, focusing on technology and the humanities—telling personal stories of fate and exploring the forces driving our era.

Four people in different provinces are driven to violent ends: An angry miner is enraged by corruption in his village. A migrant discovers the possibilities of owning a firearm. A receptionist is pushed beyond her limits by an abusive client. A young factory worker goes from one job to the next.

A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.

Teased by hallucinations, Shu, a slacker living in a rural village, struggles with an ever-loosening grip on reality. Yet when one of his visions manifests as real, his fellow villagers come to regard him as a clairvoyant. Can Shu genuinely see into the future? Is he actually just a basket case? Or is he perhaps more lucid than he seems, and pulling a fast one on everyone?

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

A Tang Dynasty minor official risks everything to deliver lychees across China. Li Shande, middle-aged and struggling, sees this dangerous mission as his last chance for success.

After his release from prison, Lang returns to his hometown near the Gobi Desert, where he forms an unexpected bond with a stray black dog.

As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.

The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.

Set in China's underworld, this tale of love and betrayal follows a dancer who fired a gun to protect her mobster boyfriend during a fight. On release from prison 5 years later, she sets out to find him.

A pig farmer, a busboy, a salon owner, an expat architect and a jaded rich girl cross paths as thousands of dead pigs float down the Yangtze River toward Shanghai.

Two former cops start investigating the series of murders that tanked their careers when the killings begin again.

A hare is let loose in the forest, a dog gives chase and the boy tears after them, his father in tentative pursuit. Minutes pass, the forest falls silent, and when the boy re-enters the frame, something has changed: he now speaks with the voice of his dead mother. Mingchung shows little surprise at Xiuying’s return, he even asks why she didn’t come earlier. She says she’ll leave again once she’s completed one simple task, to replant the tree that stands before their now abandoned home.

Three men living in the Eastern most island of China go on a road trip to the Western most end of the country, and facing crises of love, friendship, and faith on their journey to the West.