On the eve of the Cultural Revolution, Liu Xiaoqing stars as Hu Yuyin, a young, hardworking woman who runs a thriving roadside stall selling spicy beancurd in a small town. She enjoys the steady support of local officials, including Zhang Guangbei as Li Mangeng, a Party member who once hoped to marry her, and Zheng Zaishi as Gu Yanshan, the battle-hardened director in charge of the town’s granary. But in 1964 the Four Cleanups Movement dispatches a work-team to root out Rightists and capitalist roaders, turning ordinary life into a battleground of politics and personal risk.
The work-team is led by Xu Songzi as Li Guoxiang, a single woman who arrives with sweeping authority, and is assisted by Zhu Shibin as Wang Qiush, a former poor peasant who has already lost his land to misfortune and drink. As public assessments and rumors swirl, Hu Yuyin’s shop and home are targeted during a brutal public struggle session, and her husband, Harrison Liu as Li Guigui, is executed for allegedly conspiring against Li Guoxiang. The town is reorganized under the new wave of political discipline, and the changes devastate families who once seemed secure.
After the initial waves of upheaval, Hu Yuyin is reduced to a lowly street sweeper and finds herself back in the town she loves, where life is measured in small acts of endurance. She forms a cautious attachment with Jiang Wen as Qin Shutian, a musician who had arrived in the 1950s to collect local folksongs but was deemed to belong to one of the Five Black Categories. Their unexpected bond unfolds against a backdrop of shifting loyalties and the scars left by years of upheaval. The romance grows in a climate of suspicion, especially as Li Guoxiang and Wang Qiush—who are themselves secretly involved with one another—watch the relationship with rising unease.
The narrative follows the couple through a long period of constraint and punishment. Qin Shutian is sent away for reform through labor, a fate that underscores the era’s hard line against those deemed disloyal or “undesirable.” It isn’t until the late 1970s, with the Chinese economic reform, that his case is revisited and he is allowed to return to help Hu Yuyin re-establish their modest food stall, a symbol of resilience and small-scale enterprise in changing times. In the final arc, Li Guoxiang remains entrenched in the bureaucracy, a reminder of the enduring power structures, while Wang Qiush’s mind unravels under the weight of his own secrets and the pressures of the world around him. The film closes with a quiet, unflinching look at how ambition, loyalty, and memory persist amid sweeping political change, leaving Hu Yuyin to carry on with dignity and continuity in the face of loss.
