Gu Qian

Mid-Afternoon Barks is a surrealist triptych of stories that take place in Beijing, all involving the installation of electrical poles.

In the snowy countryside of northern China, Wen receives a telegram informing her that her father is dead. She travels to the city and finds he was branded a reactionary in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. She is distraught, and on the way home, she is harassed and attacked by thugs, but she stays in the home of a kind-hearted doctor.

The returned magistrate postpones his son's wedding and leads people of saline land to overcome poverty and achieve prosperity.

An agent infiltrating the Nationalist Party in wartime Shanghai finds himself under threat.