It follows, over the course of three hours, the fate of a number of young people. A repressive atmosphere predominates. One things leads to another. Allegiances and ties within the group loosen and even dissolve. In the end, a consumerist society has been produced.
Bourgeois domesticity is now the norm.
The director is a rarity in that he criticizes the Mao era, without reducing people, including local party officials and others, to caricatures. He suggests that there were those who believed they were sacrificing to bring into being a new type of society. He criticizes the Deng Xiaoping era, without cynicism and without exhibiting the slightest nostalgia for the earlier period . He leaves the audience free to draw its own conclusions about this history. Jia works slowly and patiently, treating complex social and emotional problems with extraordinary confidence and pictorial skill.