The director, Jia Zhang-ke, in his inimitable style, accompanies the well known Chinese painter, Liu Xiao-dong, known as Dong, ("east"), on his journey to Fengjie, a ghost town just about to be flooded by the new dam being built on the Yangtze River. He chooses some workmen employed in the demolition of the town, to be his models. He directs them and creates a giant painting framed by the river in the background. The process leads him in to deep contemplation regarding the relationship between art and reality, and he continues to consider this in Bangkok. There he chooses young women working as prostitutes as his models, and paints them in staged scenes. Progressively we become familiar with his perspective, and his increasing cultural involvement that is a result of his terribly close proximity to poverty.