1976-a year before the deathe Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution.Eleven-year-old Wang Han lives in the communes of rural Southwestern China - a consequence of his family being forced out of major cities.The precocious boy lives freely,until he stumbles upon a bloody fugitive,whose fate will inextricably be linked to his own family.Wang Xiaoshuais latest work,one of his finest and most accessible,is rich in quasi-autobiographical details of the period while capturing evocative details in a youths coming-of-age.