a film adaptation of Wang Anyi's popular and influential novel Changhen Ge.A person's life is destined to be shorter than that of a city. Having spent her whole life in Shanghai, Qiyao has her moments of prosperity and her fair share of loneliness. She finally fades and disappears but Shanghai remains a metropolitan city. Shanghai in the 1930s is glamorous and seductive. A pretty young girl from an ordinary family, Qiyao is lucky enough to win the 2nd runner-up of the "Miss Shanghai" contest. Mr. Cheng, her admirer as well as a photographer who assists her to her success, knows the girl is going to live an extraordinary life. It turns out she is going to witness the decades of changes to her city