Asian Shadows

In a quiet village in southern China, Fang Xiuying is sixty-seven years old. Having suffered from Alzheimer's for several years, with advanced symptoms and ineffective treatment, she was sent back home. Now, bedridden, she is surrounded by her relatives and neighbors, as they witness and accompany her through her last days.

A retired widow has her daily routine derailed when she starts receiving mysterious, anonymous phone calls.

Wang Xilin, 86, is one of China's most important modern classical composers. During the Cultural Revolution he was the target of severe persecution, enduring beatings, imprisonment and torture. With excerpts from his Symphonies, he revisits for this film some of the horrifying events that still live on in his memory as testimony to an era that saw the dehumanization of the entire Chinese nation.

Tulgaa returns to his native village to care for his dying stepfather, honouring his remaining commitments by offering to lend a hand with the summer harvest. But upon witnessing Tulgaa’s clumsy first attempts, Tuntuulei, a sassy 10-year-old boy, takes it upon himself to school the city slicker on the grassland ways. Despite getting off on the wrong foot, the two soon find common ground and form a delicate bond that will transform their lives.

After encountering a group of bandits with plans to rape and steal from her, a young widow ventures into the wilderness in search of justice.

When a pandemic breaks out, Li You is given a long vacation while Xiao Xiao is forced to remain in a city that she does not know well. A strange atmosphere hangs over the urban landscape. The two of them wander the streets in search of fun things to do. Meanwhile, their emotions, state of mind, ethical values, and physical instincts gradually become tools of desire. Once they have indulged in their pleasures and their euphoria reaches a climax, what else is left for them to set their hearts on, apart from the marks they have left on the city?

What feels like an ordinary weekend outing, paying a visit to grandpa, a young couple gets into a heated argument exposing their resentments, past lies, an old lover, a missed birthday, a possible divorce and a death. But have they told each other everything?