| Director | Jiang Wen |
|---|
The movie details four interconnected stories.
In the first story, madness and mischief reign as a single mother (Zhou Yun) drives her devoted son (Jaycee Chan) to distraction with her daredevil antics in pursuit of tranquility. The agile mom climbs tall trees and stands astride a small earthen raft on the river. She treasures a beautiful pair of slippers that she is forever losing, and the son fears that, one day, the footwear will remain while his mother disappears.
In the second story, on a college campus, two old friends find their friendship tested by rivalry over a woman. Doctor Lin (Joan Chen) is the mistress of Old Tang (Jiang Wen), but she finds herself drawn to a teacher named Liang (Anthony Wong). When Liang is accused of groping women at a campus gathering, Lin offers her rear end behind a curtain to determine whose was the guilty hand.
In the third story, Old Tang, who is a hunter, has a young wife (Kong Wei) who begins a relationship with the madwoman's son. One day, Tang overhears their noises of passion and his wife whispering that her husband says her belly is like velvet. He is determined to shoot the young man, but is taken aback when the boy asks him, "What is velvet?"
The final episode involves all the characters in a dreamlike sequence that brings their lives full circle.