Shanghai Baby

Coco, a twenty-something Shanghainese writer working as a café waitress, meets Tian Tian and feels an immediate, electric connection. The encounter pulls her away from her familiar surroundings and stirs ambitions for a novel inspired by their chemistry.

Coco leaves her parents' home to move in with Tian Tian, drawn by his vulnerability and artistic sensibility. Their bond deepens quickly, but his anxious nature creates an undercurrent of tension that foreshadows trouble.

Tian Tian's childhood trauma—his mother leaving him with his grandmother after his father's mysterious death—casts a long shadow over their relationship. His emotional fragility and inability to fully commit complicate their closeness.

Coco's world expands when she meets Mark, a large, blond German in Shanghai, whose magnetism pulls her toward a dangerous possibility. They begin a passionate, illicit affair as Coco wrestles with loyalty to Tian Tian and the lure of escape.

The affair grows more consuming as Mark's marriage and Coco's living situation become motifs of competing loyalties. Coco is torn between the safety of her current life and the intoxicating pull of a new, forbidden connection.

Sensing trouble, Tian Tian withdraws further and slips into drug use. He undertakes a journey to the south of China, leaving Coco alone and escalating the sense that their fragile world might shatter.

Coco meets Mark's wife and child at a company-sponsored event, a confrontation that underscores the complexities of desire, secrecy, and social appearances in a cosmopolitan setting. The encounter intensifies Coco's internal conflict and makes the consequences of her choices feel immediate.

Coco discovers Tian Tian has become addicted to morphine and travels to bring him back to Shanghai, where he enters a rehab center. The crisis shifts the relationship from passion to a struggle to salvage what remains.

Tian Tian's mother returns from Spain with her husband, and the family briefly reunites. Yet Tian Tian remains haunted by hostility toward her, a residual barrier that mirrors their fractured bond.

Mark reveals plans to move back to Berlin, signaling an imminent departure and heightening Coco's dilemma about fidelity and self-definition.

Coco spends several days in Mark's apartment, living with romance and risk, and she does not tell Tian Tian that she will be away. The secrecy deepens the emotional stakes and leaves Tian Tian guessing about her whereabouts.

Back at her own flat, Coco discovers Tian Tian has left for a friend's house after suspecting the affair. The discovery fractures their fragile domestic rhythm and sets the stage for tragedy.

Mark departs Shanghai and Coco and Tian Tian briefly resume their uneasy cohabitation. Soon after, Tian Tian dies of a heroin overdose, casting a long shadow over their story and forcing Coco to confront guilt and loss.

In the wake of Tian Tian's death, Coco contemplates what comes next, recognizing the cost of passion and the fragile line between longing and loss. The film closes with a quiet, unresolved question about her future as she navigates grief and the consequences of desire.