Luo Jiang and Guihua are a poor middle-aged rural couple with few prospects. They spend about $140 to buy an 11-year-old girl, Xiao Ezi (aka Little Moth), who suffers from a blood disease that makes her unable to walk. Their plan is to use the girl to beg for them: Guihua sits with the girl on a sidewalk, accepting cash from passersby, while Luo skulks around monitoring them. Complications arise when, fleeing extortionists, they accidentally infringe on the begging territory of the mysterious Mr. Yang and his one-armed boy Xiao Chun. When Xiao Chun and Xiao Ezi hit it off, the plot heads in an alarmingly unexpected direction. Far from exploiting the situation for melodrama, Peng’s cool, naturalistic, ultra-realist sensibility draws us even closer to the characters. The performances, partly improvised by exclusively non-professional actors, are simply astonishing.

Luo Jiang is a glorious, naturalistic incarnation of everything admirable and repulsive to be found in the increasingly unmoored Chinese nether-lands. Xiao Ezi says very little, but her tough, silent, all-seeing eyes speak worlds.