Synopsis

In 1958, Zeng Boyan, a young man working as a reporter for the Sichuan Daily, was classified as a rightist and sent to the farm in Ebin County, Leshan City, Sichuan Province, for re-education through labour. Here he was astonished to see hundreds of teenage boys out in the primeval forest opposite, doing the same heavy physical labour as he did. Soon these children, along with others from all over Sichuan, were sent to the Dabao area, a branch of the farm, where they began a life of half-work and half-education. Unexpectedly, a great famine swept across China and the children were subjected to a brutal onslaught. The film chronicles the amazing efforts of Zeng Boyan, a grey-haired old man who travelled between Chongqing and Sichuan to find survivors of the Dabao work camp in order to shed light on the painful history.