In the footsteps of a cosmopolitan city dweller who takes us from her native modern and thriving Shanghai in search of one of the last great mysteries of her childhood: the fabled “Golden Lotus” – the women with bounded feet. Following the red thread of her research journey, we plunge into the distant past of classical China to find the four last surviving Golden Lotus – the last testimonials of a quintessential ideal of beauty practiced by over 2 billion women nearly 1000 years in the middle kingdom.
A film from a Chinese perspective touching the different facets and tensions between modernity and tradition, erotic and nuptial ideals and the role of women in society. Stemming from a personal quest, it unveils a well-concealed and disappearing cultural phenomenon and it ends with a touching accident…