Joewi Verhoeven

A group of students trained in the special school for the art college entrance examination.

Between the city and the countryside and the modern world versus the old, a girl is at her happiest when she is in nature. Her parents are divorced, and in a modern world there is a need for money. This means a trip to the big city on the back of her mother’s scooter. Once in the big smoke, the girl must visit with her father and his new girlfriend in order to pick up the all-important alimony.

Yan is an illegal second child born during the One-Child policy. To avoid government punishment, Yan's parents hid their oldest daughter in the countryside and raised Yan as a girl. Now a young adult, Yan struggles with his gender identity and being treated as an outcast in a conservative society. His sole escape is drifting his father's old taxi through abandoned parking lots.

Widow Lin Xiumei realizes that soon after both of her sons have left home, she changes into someone who was once “needed” to an “irrelevant” person, which causes a painful confusion for her. The sudden death of Qing Er, her only friend who is 10 years younger than her, sends yet another shockwave to her. She decides to prove her worth and importance once again in her 70s before she is taken by death. With the help from others, including the guidance from Qing Er’s ghost, and the instructions from the “Goddess”, Lin Xiumei takes on an impossible mission. Will she regain the care from her family? Will she successfully find her lost self?

A decade ago, a medical student and a steelworker become pen-friends when they chance upon the same copy of Leo Tolstoy's "Resurrection". Off the page, passion and hatred mingle and two murders are committed, and the two friends part ways. A young police officer starts to investigate, but in vain. A decade later, the young graduate student has become a renowned doctor, and has married his sweetheart. The steelworker returns to the city, bringing with him his handicapped girlfriend. Meanwhile, the police officer can't shake off the unsolved mystery of the murder cases. The last ten years have brought with them great change, each of the characters falling deeper into webs of vice and desire. They must choose the path to salvation, or the road to hell.

By building a Buddhist temple in the Netherlands, Mr. Hu attempts to bridge the gap between old and new, East and West.

Li Xiaolu, 16, meets the bookish student of the class, Wang Xiaobing. They become best friends. During their short period of friendship, they read Sanmao, and discover the most beautiful places in Baocheng - the orchard and the riverbank. However, over time they become less close. Serious differences lead to their separation. In the summer holidays after the college entrance exams are over, Xiaobing comes to see Xiaolu for the last time. As memorable as their first encounter, the friends who have not met for two years reconcile on this day.