Platform

The film opens in 1979, just after the Cultural Revolution. It follows the early wave of economic liberalization and privatization that allows Western influences and consumer goods to seep into daily life. The troupe’s shift toward private management tracks the broader social and cultural changes of the era. Through years of touring, the characters witness the pace of modernization accelerate across urban and rural spaces.

The story centers on Fenyang in Shanxi, a town at the edge of China's reform era. As the troupe travels, it reaches larger cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen and even distant regions such as Inner Mongolia, highlighting the geographic spread of modernization. Rural pockets near Fenyang contrast with bright stage lights, new highways, and evolving job landscapes. The setting mirrors a country in transition from collective control to market-oriented opportunity.

⚡ Rapid Change

The film maps how state-controlled art evolves into privatized entertainment under reform. It shows how new management, tours, and Western-inflected tastes transform what people watch and how performers live. Personal desires constantly collide with bureaucratic rules and the incentives of a market-driven culture. The cadence of life shifts quickly as electricity, transport, and new venues reshape everyday experiences.

🌾 Rural-Urban Gap

The narrative juxtaposes rural life with the lure and fragility of urban opportunity. Electric lights in a countryside village, a cousin taking a low-paid coal job, and the push for education reveal the widening social divide. The contrast between the troupe’s road-worn stages and the polished urban scenes underscores how reform favors mobility and consumer access. Family economics and local hardship are weighed against personal ambition and spectacle.

💔 Relationships

Love, longing, and how intimate choices contend with social pressure are central to the story. Cui’s pursuit of Yin, Zhong’s pregnancy and abortion, and the strain of clandestine relations reveal how devotion can collide with family expectations and state scrutiny. The characters’ bonds are tested by distance, opportunity, and shifting loyalties. The ending offers a glimmer of renewal rather than a tidy closure, emphasizing the resilience of relationships amid change.