Sijie Dai	...	(Director)
Sijie Dai, Sijie Dai	...	(Writer)
Xun Zhou	...	Little Chinese Seamstress
Kun Chen	...	Luo
Ye Liu	...	Ma
Shuangbao Wang	...	Head of the Village
Zhijun Cong	...	Old Tailor
Hongwei Wang	...	Four Eyes
Xiong Xiao	...	Mother of Four Eyes
Zuohui Tang	...	Old Mill Worker
Wei Chen	...	Wife of the Head of the Village
Tianlu Chen	...	Director of the Commune
Qing-yun Fan	...	Doctor
Guy-Pierre Bennet	...	Journalist (voice)
Quilène Boileux	...	Airport Shop Assistant
Yulin Chen	...	Female Villager
Jing Fang	...	Female Villager
Yao Liu	...	Female Villager
Lina Mei	...	Female Villager
Jie Min	...	Peasant
Li Peng	...	Female Villager
Wa Su	...	Daughter in Law of the Head of the Village
Chun Hua Xu	...	Female Villager
Yukun Xu	...	Peasant
Dandan Yang	...	Mrs. Lao
He Zhang	...	Peasant
Fang Zong Zhao	...	Female Villager
Heng Fei Zhao	...	Female Villager
Jean-Marie Dreujou	...	Cinematographer

Summary: In 1971 China, in the lingering grip of the cultural revolution, two university students, Luo and Ma, are sent to a mountain mining village as part of their reeducation duty to purge them of their classical western oriented education. Amid the backbreaking work and stifling ignorance of the community, the two boys find that music, and the presence of the beautiful local young women are the only pleasant things in their miserable life. However, none compare to the young seamstress granddaughter of the local tailor. Stealing a departing student's secret cache of forbidden books of classic western literature such as the works of Honore de Balzac, they set about to woo her and teach her things she had never imagined. In doing so, they start a journey that would profoundly change her perspective on her world and teach the boys about the power of literature and their own ability to change their world in truly revolutionary ways.