Xiaobai Tang

Composed as parallel narratives on the status of women in the capitalist-fueled, rapidly expanding economy of contemporary China - one, a fictional account of Li Yueying (Yao Qianyu), a working class young woman and her search for a better life; the other, a documentary on Jenny, a middle-class housewife and mother undergoing a divorce - Emily Tang's A Perfect Life follows in the vein of Wang Bing and Jia Zhangke in presenting a cultural portrait of the "other" China. (strictly film school)

It is a subtle study of the way two couples are tragically connected through the death of a child: Yonggui, a construction foreman and his wife, Yun Zhen; Yonggui's former driver Heman who runs a tiny grocery with his wife, Qiaoyu. Convinced that a life is "owed" to him, Yonggui feels entitled to take what he wants. Qiaoyu believes it is her duty to "pay" for her husband's mistake. (ucla.edu)

The power of Conjugation lies in its striking ability to communicate the unspeakable shock and horror on a personal level of recent college graduates in Beijing struggling to make their way in a post-Tiananmen world. It communicates the unspeakable with surprising, and at times painful clarity. (imdb)