Very good film features a top notch performance from Pan Hong, the best Chinese actress in the 80s. Her performance was very strong in the last 2/3 of the movies.
The story is described in the plot summary, and things like this did happen in real life. What happened in the movie is the Chinese version of what had happened two decades ago to white-Russians who fled to China from revolution, but due to the traditional Chinese culture, namely, the Confucian teachings of covering up family scandals for the sake of saving face, the same thing happened to Chinese was rarely shown.
