AllMovie

Dreams turn into delusions for three small town misfits who can't break free from their own self-defeating cycles. Baotou, Inner Mongolia, the 1990s: a frumpy schoolteacher (Jiang Wenli) fantasizes about becoming an Italian opera singer. Into her life wanders a young artist seeking to master Western-style painting, and middle-aged gay man who aspires to become a ballet dancer. By distancing themselves from everyone who attempts to befriend them, these societal outcasts inadvertently sew the seeds of their own malaise, and continually thwart their own plans to move to such culturally diverse areas as Beijing and Shenzhen.