AllMovie

Meticulous in every way: the non-professional actors with incredible skills, the beautiful camerawork, the timing and dosing of the tragic storyline about a fourteen-year-old Chinese girl from the countryside. A grown-up feature film debut by a major talent. In the village where she was born in the province of Hunan, Huang Ji filmed this quietly disturbing, sober drama about 14-year-old Honggui, who is forced to live with her uncle and aunt in the countryside. The girl is not wanted.