Zue Zhes family is one of the prominent families in the village. He is a pitiless patriarch who rules his family strictly. In the 80’s he made a fortune from a brick factory but since he invested in agriculture he is deep in dept. Zue Zhe demands of his children and their spouses, who all live under the same roof, to completely renounce any personal ambitions and help him in his time of need. However, the difficult economic conditions, Zue Zhes bad temper and the younger generations will for independence create an inevitable clash. For months Huang Lingping (The Great Migration) and Zhu Shengweis camera followed the

disintegration of this patriarchal family. The result is a rural

Chinese documentary Soup Opera using the stories of the family members to introduce issues such as tradition versus modernism, women’s place in society, freedom and self realization. The directors manages to create empathy for the films heroes regardless of the conflicts and contradictory agendas.