	The film is an incredibly strong look at the desires of the modern members of Chinese society, and Cindy and Jerry are wonderfully staged opposite each other. Cindy is working in this place to better herself, and provide for her family, as hopefully income will pay for her high school as well as supporting her parents in this new move in which they've losing their farmland. Jerry is working for his pursuit of money, starting off the film by saying at a party with his friends that he guarantees them more fun than they can handle when he comes back in the New Year. Both of them representing the bi-polar nature of modern China. This is a society with people living in incredibly rural areas, farming for themselves and a meager profit, who are being displaced and marginalized by progress, who exist alongside the exemplars of modern capitalism, who live for the quest for money and fame. Yung Chang's style is earnest and non-obtrusive and he's not trying to force one idea over another. There are people who are effected heavily by this progress and are seemingly bitter such as the antiques dealer, but at the same time Cindy's father recognizes that while “[The dam is] beneficial to our country, but for individuals, I don't think it will do me any good.” a notion that even while he may suffer some good must come of the project. Chang has shown us the genuine consequences of all of this progress, and how modern China is leaving the peasant roots of it's revolution behind, for the movement towards an economy focused on capital and some social mobility but with a drastic human cost, as people are stripped away from their roots and homes. As the director puts it in his voice-overs, “Even my grandfather can’t recognize the China he once knew.” 
