Li Xiaomeng

The wife of a prominent psychiatrist can't find her marriage certificate one day. This "jiehunzheng" is all important. Without it, the family officially has never existed, including the daughter. The couple go on a wild goose chase through the Chinese bureaucracy, meeting catch-22 all the way....they need a certificate to get a new one, etc. They even journey back to the People's Commune where they met, now the site of modern private enterprises where nobody even recalls the former occupants.

When your parents don’t approve of your spouse, is a happy life possible? Mi Xiao is a reporter for a Beijing news agency who meets and falls in love with Jin Liang, a gynecologist. When Xiao Mi insists on marrying Liang, Xiao Mi’s single mother, Wang Shu Hua, nearly has a heart attack but is forced to accept the relationship. But when living with Liang’s father, Jin Tai Zhu, turns out to be more difficult than imagined, Xiao Mi’s mother refuses to just stand by and just watch.

In 1970s rural China, Sun Shaoping and his older brother Sun Shaoan pursue different paths as they struggle with love, poverty, and the hope of building better lives.