When a precious jade stone is discovered in an old outhouse, the owner of said outhouse and the surrounding buildings suddenly finds himself with the financial clout to withstand the buy-out pressure of an unethical developer who wishes to build a large building on his plot. The owner, intending to display the stone to the public, puts his dedicated chief of security in charge of keeping it safe. But with the stakes running high, this is easier said than done. The developer hires a high-tech cat burglar from Hong Kong to steal the stone, the owner’s wayward son sees the jewel as the perfect symbol of wealth and hatches a plan to use it to increase his chances at getting laid, and a gang of three con-men who hear about the jewel see it as their ticket to the big time. These three groups find themselves in direct competition and, finding their attempts foiled as often by the security guard as by each other, become more and more desperate as the film progresses. —wikipedia
Hao Ning was born in Shanxi, China in 1977. He is a graduate from the Photography Department at Beijing Film Academy. His student film Thursday, Wednesday (2001) was awarded Best Director at the Beijing University Student Film Festival and the Silver Prize at the Chinese University Student Film Festival. Ning Hao’s debut feature Incense (2003) premiered at Locarno, and won the Grand Prize at Tokyo Filmex, and went on to win the Gold Prize in the Asian DV Competition at Hong Kong IFF. The film was also awarded Best Film of 2004 by HK Arts Centre, and shown in official selection at seven other international festivals, namely San Sebastian, Vancouver, Munich, Vienna, Sydney, California and Taiwan South Film Festival. Ning Hao’s latest film, Mongolian Pingpong (2004) was selected for Berlin International Forum and Hong Kong IFF and won the audience choice award in Shanghai IFF under the Asian Section. —asianmediawiki.com
