We open on a tight shot of Tang Shuisheng’s (Xiaoxiao Wang) face, the world swarming around him. And for the next 7 days, we view life exclusively through the 14-year-old boy’s eyes. It’s the provincial lad’s first visit to the big city. (Recreating Shanghai in the 1930s was a task for which production designer Juiping Cao was clearly ready.) Call it guilt by association: Shuisheng is drafted by his crime boss uncle Tang (Li Baotian) to tend to his mistress Xiao Jinbao’s (Gong Li) every wish. The decision was based not on the boy’s desire to be a gangster, but on the luck of the draw: the untrustworthy Tang will hire only from within the family. Zhang Yimou (Ju Dou, House of Flying Daggersem>)
This movie is not currently in theaters.