This visually spectacular film-the feature directorial debut by the cinematographer of Yellow Earth and The Big Parade-is a sweeping modern-day fable that parallels the life story of an intrepid young woman with the history of China in the turbulent 1930s. "The film's epic structure is divided into distinct and dialectally resonant parts, each with its own style and historical background. The first half is a lusty romantic comedy telling of a nervous young bride's arrival at a remote provincial winery...and her successful assumption of the family business when her aged husband is mysteriously but conveniently murdered...The second half is a heroic and harrowing war drama dealing with enemy brutality and partisan resistance fighting during the Japanese occupation of China" (New Yorker Films). "(With) its widescreen, fairy-tale strangeness and tactile sense of life in the wildest reaches of western China...the film's exoticism is palpable, almost intoxicating...(However) Zhang's superb eye masks his lack of interest in his subjects' psychology..." (David Edelstein, Village Voice).