China, 1989 Two young lovers play out their complex, erotic, love/hate relationship against a volatile backdrop of political unrest. Beautiful Yu Hong leaves her village, her family and her boyfriend to study in Beijing, where she discovers a world of intense sexual and emotional experimentation, and falls madly in love with fellow student Zhou Wei. Their relationship becomes one of dangerous games, as all around them their fellow students begin to demonstrate, demanding democracy and freedom. Lou Ye (Suzhou River; Purple Butterfly) reveals a portrait of a place and a generation - China and liberated Chinese youth - as never seen before in the West. By turns lyrical and brutal, elegiac and erotic, Summer Palace depicts a passionate love story and the struggle for personal liberty jeopardized by history and fate.Starring: Lei Hao, Xiaodong Guo