Synopsis

Tang Xixin is a retired railway official who has lost little of his outspoken character at the age of 80. He does not like to receive his adult children in his ramshackle home, but he makes an exception for his daughter Caifeng. She runs a brothel and is involved in equally illegal mining practices; in other words, a woman of the world who energetically evades the long arm of the law. Old Tang, with his flood of words, is an ideal witness to the twentieth century; his daughter is a colourful symbol of the new China, even though in the eyes of the state she is undoubtedly far from a role model. Xu Tong’s intimate, occasionally raw style of filming fits his subject matter well.