Nie Yinniang is a short story written in Classical Chinese by Pei Xing, a Chinese writer who lived during the Tang dynasty. The story is set in 9th century China and tells the story of Nie Yinniang who was trained in martial arts from a young age. She is the daughter of Nie Feng, a general under Tian Ji'an, the ruler of the de facto independent fanzhen of Weibo.
The story tells that in 1944, Qingdao’s underground organization “Beidou” launched a fierce life-and-death confrontation with the Japanese gendarmerie, the Black Dragon Club and the military to protect a small girl who took the Soviet Union’s secret attack on the Japanese Kwantung Army.
On one day in September 1992, a driver (Xie Dong) goes to pick up his girlfriend, who is working the night shift. He happens to meet a cellist, Yingzi (Kong Lin), who missed her bus. After he drops off Yingzi, he finds her pager in his car.
The film follows a nurse, Ye Tong (Kong Lin), who also serves as the film's narrator. One day, Ye Tong reunites with some childhood friends, including Peng Wei, a disillusioned and long-haired young man who leads a local rock band. Ye finds herself attracted to Peng Wei's lifestyle, despite the admonitions of her police officer friend, Zheng Weidong. When Zheng is injured by a mutual friend, Ye finds herself increasingly attracted to the strait-laced Zheng, while also finding herself attracted to Peng.
Freely adapted from Gabriel García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the film follows the investigation of a local teacher's murder in a small and desperately poor rural village, the story of the crime gradually pieced together from the fragmented memories of witnesses forced to testify at an inquest. Sharing with her Fifth Generation colleagues Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang a remarkable eye for the barren landscapes of northern China and a fascination with small-town life — especially those enduring superstitions that Communism failed to erase — director Li Shaohong also introduces several formal innovations, particularly in storytelling structure, that remain unprecedented in Chinese cinema.
La película nos muestra la vida de las cuatro esposas de un hombre rico que viven en una gran casa. El hombre es el dueño y señor y las mujeres son de su propiedad y cada día elige a una de ellas para pasar la noche, mediante la colocación de una gran linterna roja en la puerta de la habitación de la mujer escogida. Este rito da lugar al título y provoca las mejores situaciones de la película, al reflejar la tensión y la rivalidad producida en las mujeres cada atardecer, cuando esperan en las puertas de sus habitaciones ver en cúal de ellas lucirá esa noche la lámpara. Esas cuatro paredes, este patio interior, típico de las casas chinas, se convierten en un microuniverso -que no quiere saber que fuera hay otras alternativas- en el que hasta el más pequeño detalle adquiere la mayor relevancia.
