
User Score
10 votes
Li Baicheng is a charismatic fortune teller who services a clientele of prostitutes and marginalized figures whose jobs, like his, are commonplace but technically illegal in China. He practices his ancient craft in a village near Beijing while taking care of his deaf and dumb wife Pearl, who he rescued from her family's mistreatment. Winter brings a police crackdown on both fortune tellers and prostitutes, forcing Li and Pearl into temporary exile in his hometown, where he revisits old family demons. His humble story is told with chapter headings similar to Qing Dynasty popular fiction.
Director
Status
Released
Original Language
ZH
Near the remains of an iron factory, an old painter faces the challenges of creation, as his longtime muse has not appeared in some time. A young girl lends her curiosity to discover what it is that holds the old painter back. Her mother tells her a bedtime story to which brings understanding of the relationship between the abandoned factory and the lonely artist nearby. Poetically representing a new relationship between human beings and things buried in oblivion after doing their duties, this work approaches the essence of 'science' and 'civilization.'