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Dong (Liu Xiaodong) and Chun (Yu Hong) have been married for a while, but they are still fairly young. Nonetheless, the sap has drained out of their marriage, and they are like an old couple. Part of it, of course, is that Dong's career and his art are going nowhere. It doesn't help that Chun gave up her own artistic work in order to keep house. Things have gotten to the point that Chun is thinking about moving to America to join her parents there, and leaving Dong behind. Before that can happen, her husband asks her to join him on a trip to his home of origin in Manchuria. This black and white drama is one of the few Chinese films to focus on the internal psychology of its subjects rather than larger social issues.