Set in 1988 Beijing in the months leading up to the Tiananmen Square disaster, this film tells the story of Chen Handong, a successful middle-aged businessman with deep Communist party connections, who falls passionately in love with Lan Yu, a boy from the countryside. The two men gradually become lovers, but their relationship is shattered by Handong's infidelity. When political turmoil erupts, both men, facing the momentous changes afoot, try to remember the love that transformed them. This film about the fragility and ultimate necessity of love, even under the shadow of great events, is also a remarkably specific look at China at one of its most crucial recent junctures-a time of hope and fear, mirrored by the emotional turmoil of Lan Yu's star-crossed lovers.
[text excerpted from MFA website]