In a small Chinese town some years ago, two childhood friends contend with the harsh realities of a nation drastically transitioning from Socialism to Market Economy. A young boy looking for guidance accidentally gets entangled with local hoodlums. His neighbor and classmate, a decent young girl, tries her best to help him with his studies while staying afloat amid the chaos of modernization herself. They dream of a future where they can both leave the confines of their town, but an unexpected accident redirects their fates to something else entirely.

With no motion-picture rating system in place in China, films must be deemed suitable for all audiences in order to be shown. Officially, the censorship system is designed to promote Confucian morality, political stability and social harmony, which means that features are often removed from reality and didactic in tone. Enter upcoming director Wang Jinsong, whose How Far Tomorrow? is one of the very first Chinese movies to tackle the grim reality of rising recreational drug use head-on. Following in the footsteps of modern classics such as Requiem for a Dream and 21 Grams, the film follows happy wife and mother Yu Lanben, whose life spirals out of control when she stumbles across her town’s seedy underbelly and quickly falls victim to addiction. A blistering critique of China’s public welfare system and the dangerousness of excess, as well as a groundbreaking work of social realism, this is a trailblazing vision from a filmmaker whose star is very much the rise.