Based in part on Chinese folk dancer Yang Liping's life story, a young girl from a remote village who becomes a dance star and suffers an emotional breakdown.
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him.
Teased by hallucinations, Shu, a slacker living in a rural village, struggles with an ever-loosening grip on reality. Yet when one of his visions manifests as real, his fellow villagers come to regard him as a clairvoyant. Can Shu genuinely see into the future? Is he actually just a basket case? Or is he perhaps more lucid than he seems, and pulling a fast one on everyone?