The film is inspired by the life of Wu Mengchao, a renowned academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and widely known as the “Father of Hepatobiliary Surgery” in China. It portrays the compassion, dedication, and extraordinary medical skill of this legendary doctor, who continued to serve patients well into his nineties.

A story of a family's dilemma between different family member especially between 2 generations which erupted on “chu xi” (the day before the first day in Chinese lunar year).

Freely adapted from Gabriel García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the film follows the investigation of a local teacher's murder in a small and desperately poor rural village, the story of the crime gradually pieced together from the fragmented memories of witnesses forced to testify at an inquest. Sharing with her Fifth Generation colleagues Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang a remarkable eye for the barren landscapes of northern China and a fascination with small-town life — especially those enduring superstitions that Communism failed to erase — director Li Shaohong also introduces several formal innovations, particularly in storytelling structure, that remain unprecedented in Chinese cinema.

During the Anti-Japanese War, two students at the University of Shanghai fall in love.

The film focuses on an epic battle in the history of China's War of Resistance against Japan, which shocked the world with its overwhelming force against a small enemy. In the 1944 Hengyang defense battle, the 10th Army of the Chinese front battlefield, with a force of less than 18,000 people, defended the city alone against the Japanese army with a total strength of 110,000 people outside the city for 47 days. The Chinese army suffered more than 16,000 casualties and the Japanese army suffered more than 48,000 casualties, creating the only record of the comparison of enemy and our forces and casualties since the War of Resistance. It dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese army's No. 1 operation launched by the Japanese headquarters and became a battle case comparable to any battle in World War II.