Red Cherry

In the early summer of 1941, Luo Xiaoman and Chuchu arrive at the Ivanov International School in Moscow as new students, having fled China after the White Terror. They quickly adapt and learn to fit in, mastering Russian with ease. The setting introduces their fragile new start in a foreign country.

As summer arrives, Chuchu and several classmates travel to a summer camp in Belarus, led by their teacher Miss Vera. Xiaoman stays behind in Moscow while the war looms over the evacuated city. The separation foreshadows the dangers that will soon unfold.

With Nazi Germany's invasion, Moscow is half evacuated and the children are scattered. Xiaoman begins surviving on the streets, often begging or stealing, and even selling blood to buy food. He gradually adapts to life in a city under occupation.

While struggling to survive, Xiaoman discovers an orphaned girl in an apartment and adopts her as his daughter. He continues to support them by delivering condolence letters to families of fallen soldiers. This acts as a fragile beacon of family amid chaos.

Chuchu and her classmates are captured by German invaders and kept as slaves, living in constant fear. Miss Vera is brutally murdered in front of the students for defying the occupiers by teaching. The camp's grip tightens as danger escalates.

Karl, half-German and fond of Chuchu, uses his Aryan identity to fool a German soldier and steals an MP40, enabling the other students to escape. He is soon cornered and machine-gunned to death in a forest pit. His sacrifice underscores the peril of the resistance.

The escape attempt collapses as the captives are recaptured and sentenced to death by hanging. An old man and one girl are executed with a brutal shot to the head. The students face a grim, swift punishment under the occupiers.

A high-ranking German officer, General Von Dietrich, arrives and spares Chuchu and several classmates, sending them to work as servants at Nazi headquarters in the Yakovlev Monastery. There, the officer's cruel fascination with tattooing begins, using Chuchu as his 'masterpiece' to parade before guests.

Von Dietrich's tattooing obsession marks Chuchu with a large Nazi eagle on her back, branding her as the officer's life-long 'masterpiece'. When the Reich is doomed, he abandons her in a field and commits suicide, leaving her life scarred and stigmatized.

Unable to join the Red Army due to his age, Xiaoman enacts a vengeful measure against the German POWs. He uses a home-made slingshot to target them, then lures the rioting prisoners into a ruined apartment where oil tanks are set ablaze, dying in the resulting explosion.

In the end, Chuchu is reunited with the orphaned girl Xiaoman had adopted. She hears his Russian class speech and, moved, embraces the girl, breaking down in tears. The moment binds the two survivors in shared memory.

The tattoo and the scar on Chuchu’s back remain as a lasting symbol of trauma and stigma she bears for life. The credits note that a skin graft to remove the tattoo was not successful and recount the true story of Chuchu and her life afterward.