One of the triumphs of the Shanghai Film Festival, this stylistically daring film starts out looking like social commentary but deepens into something more complicated and involving. China, like many countries, faces the problem of an aging population, though without an extensive social welfare network.

Ye Xiaolin (played by Chinese superstar Wan Qian) is an enigmatic caregiver employed by families, too intent on creating wealth to look after their geriatric parents. Her patients have a tendency to die suddenly. When she meets Ma Deyong (Rao Xiaozhi), a zookeeper whose closest friend is an aged lion, their relationship slowly builds. The couple look after the old in a society obsessed with the new, with money, and with cruelty (which are, perhaps, the same thing). They come to understand that love is the ability to understand and share pain, and that dying isn’t always easy. A film that is dark and daring, caring and challenging.