In a frozen town unwilling to stagnate, a middle-aged man meets true love and decides to come out of the closet. A lesbian couple decides to look for a gay man to marry and have a child. Behind their fiery love stories is an absurd drama of identity politics. The ghost of communism often wanders around the lonely souls.
On a 1980s evening, the topmost clown-actor of the 20th century Sichuan opera, Qiu Fu passes away in an accident and half-unwillingly sets off for the Ghost City under the escort of two underworld officials. Along the way, he meets old friends. As they recall the past, a history of the living is conjured up.
Under a tin-gray sky, in a hollowed out corner of northern China, a stranger arrives in town bearing magical soap—but smelling it will cost you. Nearby, a pair of unenthused cops try cracking a seemingly simple case. Or not. And you can forget religious solace; the only monk around is not what he seems.
Liu Jincai, a taxi driver, falls in love with unemployed Wu Li. Wu Li's parents ask 20 000 yuan to Liu's family to cover their daughter's fee for nurse school in a bigger city, in exchange of a promise of marriage just after graduation. Liu's parents firmly refuse. Despaired, Liu Jincai commits suicide with poison. During Jincai's funeral, beyond his buddies, his brother Liu Jinbao swears to exterminate Wu Li's whole family. Wu's family urgently moved away, Jinbao searches downtown on a motorbike with a knife...