Acting
At 20, Ling balances boxing and helping with her mother's lunchbox business, all while her family quietly unravels. Her parents fake harmony, but when her father brings home a new "girlfriend," the illusion is shattered. Refusing to look away, Ling endures the blows - bloodied and tear-streaked. In facing reality head-on, she discovers a deeper truth: only with honesty in her heart do her punches carry real weight.
The life of seventeen-year-old Xuan is anything but ordinary: She lives and works with her mother and sister in a recycling center surrounded by things others have thrown away. One day, at the suggestion of a boy she likes, she tries to escape into the life of a normal teenage girl.
Across three eras, eerie dreams of a red snake connect the intertwined fates of two families. In 2026, Xiao Lian’s play about her grandmother Paochu’s guerrilla tales sparks a political backlash. Seeking Paochu’s hideout with the guide, Yulao, they find a dead Vietnamese logger. In 1989, police informant JunXian breaks from his handlers after confessing to Ya-Hong, Xiao Lian’s mother, who's the editor in chief of a magazine, then is framed for robbery and is tortured by the police. In 1952, A-Kun, an idealistic enforcer for Paochu’s guerrillas is also a henchman for them. History repeats itself as love and justice struggle against a legacy of hatred.
Lan, a stoic counselor, masks her soul's fractures with professional restraint until she meets Zhen-Zhen. The rebellious dropout's fragmented talk of a fatal car accident strikes a terrifying chord—it is the same tragedy that claimed Lan's lover. What begins as therapy spirals into a dangerous obsession.
