Seventeen Years
Directed by internationally acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yuan (East Palace, West Palace), SEVENTEEN YEARS is a moving study of jealousy, violence and the immutability of family ties.  Two teenage stepsisters living in the same house couldn't be more different.  One is academic, pretty and quite cosmopolitan.  The other is tough minded and proud of her working class roots.  As their parents play favorites, an unhealthy competition between them emerges that climaxes in a moment of shocking rage as one of the sisters accidentally kills the other over a bit of lost grocery money.  The young girl is convicted of murder and sentenced to a long stay in prison.  After 17 years she is granted a special furlough for the New Years.  When her parents fail to pick her up, she's left stranded: a prison guard, Chen Jie (Li Bingbing) takes pity on the now mature woman and becomes determined to have her spend the holiday with her family.  What follows is one of the most moving and bittersweet family reunions ever depicted on film.