Between 1967 and 1976, nearly eight million Chinese youth were "sent down" to the countryside under a repressive program of the Communist government known as the Cultural Youth Revolution. The accomplished actress Joan Chen has created a touching film about one fifteen-year-old girl's experience during this exile from her family and friends. The drama is based on an award-winning novella by Yan Geling.
After saying farewell to her admiring boyfriend and her loving family, Xiu Xiu (Lu Lu) spends a year of hard labor in the countryside. She is then sent by herself to learn horse herding with Lao Jin (Lopsang), a solitary Tibetan who was castrated in prison. Living in one tent with him, Xiu Xiu has little privacy. However, he is an honorable man who tries to make her stay with him as pleasant as possible.
Accustomed to the energy and the pleasures of the city, Xiu Xiu yearns to return to her family and boyfriend. When a series of Chinese officials promise her a pass back home in exchange for sexual favors, she acquiesces. The loss of her innocence pulls at the heart of Lao Jin, who turns out to be her last hope for release from this difficult exile. The soullessness of the Communist treatment of this idealistic teenager and others like her is a crime of mammoth proportions.