In a quaint small town, there was a thunderstorm at night and a scorching sun the next day. This strange weather that had not been seen in a century made people doubt whether an earthquake would occur.

Documentary featuring scenes of hand-to-hand and combat with weapons.

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.

With few other real options, when the young village woman in this story is offered an arranged marriage with a kindly but mildly retarded shopkeeper who lives in a nearby town, she readily accepts. Once she has settled into her new home, she becomes involved with her new husband’s patron, a man involved in some underworld trading activities.