Ye Lanqiu (Gao Yuanyuan) is a beautiful and successful young woman who, as the film opens, is diagnosed with an advanced lymphatic cancer that requires immediate treatment. Numb with shock, Lanqiu sits on a crowded city bus, hiding behind large sunglasses and completely oblivious to what is happening around her, not even registering the conductor's persistent request that she give up her seat for an elderly pensioner. This moment of perceived incivility is recorded on a mobile phone by an assistant to journalist Chen Ruoxi (Yao Chen), and the zealous reporter quickly decides to go viral with the video, flooding the web with the footage of the callous “Sunglass Girl”. The video triggers a massive internet hate-mail campaign against the already stricken Lanqiu, and heralds even more catastrophes in both her personal and professional life. But fate is not yet finished with Lanqiu, and the chaotic course she has been unjustly set upon will, through a chain of bizarre coincidences, bring her face to face with the very person who made her a public pariah. [Source: Programmer's Note, 2012 Toronto International Film Festival]
This contemporary dramedy is by director and writer, Chen Kaige, one of the leading figures of the fifth generation of Chinese cinema who is renowned for his epic storytelling and visually spectacular period pieces. It features an ensemble cast including Yao Chen, Mark Chao, Gao Yuanyuan, Wang Xueqi and producer/Chen's wife, Chen Hong.
Director Chen's Farewell My Concubine (1993) won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and he remains the first and only Chinese director to have been honoured with the film festival's highest award to date.
