Filmde, tek bir aile üzerinden Tayvan tarihinin en karışık dönemi anlatılıyor: Japon istilasının bitmesine tanıklık eden dört yılı, anakaradan yapılan toplu göçleri, ve sıkı yönetimin ilan edilmesini konu alıyor...

Tayvanlı başarılı yönetmen bu filminde 1800’lü yılların sonunda Çin’li fahişeleri ve müşterilerini konu alıyor. Hou filmlerinin aldatıcı büyüleyiciliğiyle birlikte karekterler çok iyi seçilmiş ve yaratılmış.Film, ilk karesinden son karesine kadar eşi görülmemiş bir yapıt.

In three separate segments, set respectively in 1966, 1911, and 2005, three love stories unfold between three sets of characters, under three different periods of Taiwanese history and governance.

In this portrait of small-time hoods rendered in rhythm-of-life anecdotal detail, Gao is the leader of a circle of layabouts including his sidekick, Flathead, and their girlfriends, Pretzel and Ling. He is also the originator of petty crime schemes, which promise to get the gang nowhere fast.

An actress preparing to play in a historical epic is terrorized by someone faxing her pages from her stolen diary; has colorful flashbacks of her affair with a now-deceased man; and imagines black-and-white film-within-a-film scenes of the movie she is about to appear in.

In June, 1993 , the gravestone of Hsu Ching-Lan was finally found in Liuchangli by his brother after 40 years of searching. Hsu was killed by the KMT during the 'White Terror,' the organized suppression of leftist activities in Taiwan in the 1950s.