Xinghua lives with her husband, who makes money by selling stones from the Great Wall. But she is unable to give him a son to inherit this wealth. When her husband hatches a plan to tear down the local historic fortress to find a legendary hidden treasure, she finds herself drawn to a gentler, more educated man who wants to preserve it.
Set against the backdrop of the Boxer Rebellion and the takeover of the Forbidden City by foreign powers, the empress-dowager Cixi and her notorious chief eunuch fight a losing battle to preserve their corrupt and autocratic regime.
Patriarch of the Yang Clan
巨匠チャン・イーモウと名女優コン・リーの黄金コンビによる初期の傑作。舞台は1920年代中国の農村。不能の染物屋に嫁ぎ、夜な夜な虐げられる菊豆が染物屋の甥と不義の仲となり、やがて悲劇を招く。
孙铁杆
A fiction about the founder Mingquan Yang, and the early ages of Quanjude Restaurant, the most famous Peking duck restaurant. Yang bought the Dejuquan restaurant and changed the name to Quanjude according to a fortune teller, hired cooks from the Forbidden City, and invented a special recipe of roasted duck.
A married village worker teams up with an old girlfriend to try to dig a well for his water-starved village. The well collapses and they are trapped. Their enforced confinement leads to them exploring their feelings for each other and those around them.
