1960s China, and society is commanded to rebel against tradition.
Amid the political turmoil, three young artists look out from their attic salon onto the streets of the northern port city of Tianjin. When economic reforms turn society on its head, they are given licence to indulge their artistic passions. Deluged by the increasingly materialistic masses, they paint themselves onto separate paths as they lose track of once sacred certainties. In this warming age where everything is fluid, can the bonds of winter hold?