The Sun Also Rises

Composed as a quartet of stories, the first tale is a pastoral idyll about the magical and moonstruck existence of a young widow and her son. A pair of embroidered shoes sends the mother into a flight of fancy and delirium; but years later, a trip to her island hideaway reveals something of her past... The second story is set in a college campus at the dawn of the Cultural Revolution. It focuses on the desires and illicit ménage à trois between two Indonesian Chinese returnees and a voluptuous female doctor. In the next episode, the protagonist of the previous story is sent down to the village where the mad widow and her now grown-up son lives. Then a tale about male egos and female bellies, and how caressing velvet can save or ruin lives. The last story journeys back in time to the windswept Gobi Desert, home of nomadic Uyghurs.The film’s main protagonists converge in a single unified time and place. Poised at crucial junctures in life – marriage, death, and birth, their predestined connections are finally unravelled.