Gao Yuan (Peng Yuchang), a high school student, diagnoses with muscular dystrophy and learns that his life is running out of days. He decides to achieve his only wish of being a true man before he dies. Knowing that, his best friends, Xu Hao (Wang Talu) and Zhang Zhengyang (Wei Daxun), struggle to make Gao Yuan’s last wish come true.

In 1980s China, the country is beginning to reform and workers who had been moved with their families to the provinces in the 60s now long to return to Shanghai. For one displaced family a conflict arises when their 19-year-old daughter finds love with a local boy, threatening their chance of a return to the city.

When internationally acclaimed artist Mo Ke announces that he is selling his prized painting, "The Falling Feather", and that he will donate all the proceeds from its sale to a small Yunnan town, everyone in the art world is puzzled and intrigued. Why is he doing this? To answer this question we are transported 20 years into the past, to when a young unknown painter visited Yunnan and was captivated and inspired not only by the beauty of the location, but by a young woman... with a feather in her hair.