China's tumultuous 1980s are revisited in this hyperrealistic account of one provincial theater troupe's struggles, in a landscape moving from post-Cultural Revolution isolation to a consumer-age nightmare of bad perms and disco fever. The troupe is founded in 1979, but by 1989 they have left traditional opera and Mao behind and become the All-Star Rock'n'Breakdance Electronic Band, performing Cantopop and Michael Jackson to an increasingly dwindling?and increasingly unentertained? audience. Memers fight, split up, drained by continual run-ins with angry workers, hardheaded cops, and corrupt politicians. Jia Zhang Ke covers a nation's transformation by focusing on one group of finely sketched, all-too-human characters.