ABSTRACT
The vicissitudes of the members of a small cultural troupe transforming from a peasant culture troupe to a break dance electronic band create a microcosm of the social-economic and cultural transmutation of China in the first decade of reform and opening-up. The movie is a historical epic transcribing human affection of an entire generation, a testimony to the vastly shifting social-economic history, within the gigantic societal disintegration and restructuration. Essentially, these characters are searching for their new identity within this exciting yet simultaneously frustrating circumstance of cultural displacement; their efforts do not triumphantly reach a destination. The film does not show what has caused lost youth and led to the forfeiture of idealism, apart from emerging commercialization. It falls short of the wisdom ingeniously accounting for the origin and consequence of this gigantic movement.
