Summer Palace, renovated before the first Sino-Japanese war, witnessed the country's defeat. A love story, occurred before the Tian'anmen protests, broke up formally and hastily.

As a dividing line, 1989 showed the audience two completely different plots. The first part of the film was so insincere that I hesitated to quit seeing the rest. I couldn't stop criticizing the costumes, the lifestyle and the behaviors in the film -- dandyism, smoking (girls!), flirting, masturbation, one-night stand, all these stuffs are like a big joke against the truth and the ideology in such period. (I even doubted Lou Ye has mixed Beijing up with Berlin although the story took place in China?) But after a while, I comprehended it was their honest ignorance of this world and also, the hunger for freedom and love. 1989, all pure desires crushed. The desire to establish a democratic state, the desire to believe there will be a worldwide camp, the desire to establish an intimate relationship (with and transcending sexuality). What have been left to us, were mere a burnt truck, a fallen wall, a disintegrated union and a dismal love.
I thoroughly admire the second part. Being experienced a chain of changes, Alone, purposeless, poor, sorrowful or whatever became quite reliable to me. Yu Hong said in her diary, when the bodies are intimate, they bring the trust, which gives the confidence in success -- yet the passion won't last long. but wait, what on earth would last forever?
We once had firm faith in a polity, now we lost the passion as well. When we were young, precocious, we knew little about what we needed, but we had power, could waste freely. We bled in the war. After we've been matured enough, sophisticated, we then know what actually we are seeking for, however, it suddenly becomes hard to approach the reality. We're unable to move in the years of peace.
Lou Ye was asked what was he doing during Tian'anmen himself. He responded with "I told you! I was in love at that time." But he didn't forget to question, for example, "What's Warsaw like?" in the film  -"It's...ok." whispered the woman, "and Beijing?"  -"It's ok." a diffident reply. It was full of irony to shot the demonstration in favor of socialism in Germany, but there has nothing more contrasting between a resurgent communism and a withered relationship. The scene Zhou Wei stood beside a gang of punks is meaningful, you know he (and his friends) once wanted to be one of them -- the horrifying spectacle disco/rock'n'roll for China in 1987.
There was no pain, we pretended to be afflicted. When the real suffering comes, we've forgotten what aches are. C'est La vie, the same as the love. Both Yu Hong and Li Ti refused love, they were afraid it hurts someone, so Yu chose to escape and Li committed suicide. If that zeal can't sustain a brief is acceptable, evading a love is no way to blame too. Zhou Wei didn't understand that in the beginning. He had intercourse with different people, as rumor said all females thought he's sexy but Yu only bumped into them one time when he was dating another girl in his dormitory. Therefore, Zhou rashly fell into a relationship with Li is not surprising at all. In Berlin Zhou told that he had a feeling life there was only temporary, ain't his love either? "When the wounds scar over, love disappears." That was Li's remarks, Zhou Wei totally disagreed. He watched Li jumping down, as well as the parting of Yu before. A protest demonstration is formed again, yet a love doesn't. He shirked in the end, without simply saying goodbye.
A long silence before the ending thus was the best performance, compared to the numerous sex scenes and clumsy play in Tian'anmen act. Personal emptiness can't ever replace a nation's bitterness, narcissistic narrative only brings partial concern.

We don't forget Lou Ye once lived in that period. More or less, the movement influenced on him. Some people suspect his sincerity for that film, I can't tell, but all of us become mature in the things we adore, or hate. One can never choose his fate before a historical event. They've been dashed upto the ridge of waves or submerged by flood water, no matter reluctantly or not. I admit this film has a strong smack of personal inclination, and it seems the director had certain reservations about it -- apparently in his anxious and his affectation. I call them authentic revelation, though unfortunately failed, sorry.