A young man stands in front of a mirror. The night belongs to him. Every evening, he appraises his appearance, attired in a new shirt, leaves his apartment and waits in a poorly lit alleyway for his johns. One night he meets a female prostitute of his age who’s new in this part of town.
A Communist Party functionary, Wang, finds himself drawn back his to one-time boyfriend, Daniel, an American teacher at a university in China. Wang’s plan unravels when his fiancée, Ting, the university’s propagandist, discovers his secret.
An official, a propagandist, and a foreign teacher untangle their lives in the confines of a faculty dormitory.
An immigrant artist in Iowa retreats to frozen prairies, forests, and swamps, trying to find a meaningful story and escape from the anxieties of dislocation. Delivered as a film-letter to the protagonist’s little sister in rural China, the film considers his self-exile as well as mental health struggles that were too shameful to address back home.
