A gripping study – based on the lives of real characters - of drifting youth in the mining province of Shanxi in Northern China in the early 90s. Experimenting with new-found freedom in a post-socialist economy, three high-school boys - 'sworn brothers' - dream of liberty, carelessness and easy money. But life catches up with them... They are forced to face the world and wake up to a reality similar to that of their parents – from which they had tried to escape.