Chinese filmmaker Dai Sije, who was educated in France, directed a French crew, lead Japanese actor Akihiro Nishida, and a mostly Vietnamese cast in this French-Canadian-Vietnamese drama set in China. Restaurant owner Tang the 11th (Nishida), learning his older brother, Tang the First (Tapa Sudana) is ill, returns to the his remote native village, long plagued by leprosy. Superstition holds that a cure can be obtained when a family of five sons and five daughters makes possible the death of a fish from the Lake of Heaven, since the leprosy remedy is in the flesh of this fish. It just so happens that Tang the 11th has five sons, four daughters, and a pregnant wife. Shown in competition at the Montreal World Film Festival.