Dong Ci Bian Wei (Conjugation) is a film by first-time Chinese director Tong Hiu Pak (also known as Emily Tang). The setting is Beijing in the winter of 1990. Song has just received a degree in chemistry and the government has given him job at a small factory. While he should be happy, he is not. He wishes to travel abroad, to put his knowledge to a better use, but money is tight. Unsure of his future, he has delayed in marrying his girlfriend Xiaoqing, a student of French, and this has led to an added problem. Since the cohabitation of unmarried couples is illegal in China, Song and Xiao Qing are forced to live as squatters at a dreary hovel where they are free to dream of future happiness. Surrounding them is a circle of despairing friends and ghosts of the "Beijing Spring," when they marched in Tian'anmen Square and saw beloved comrades shot down. At every turn, Song and Xaio Qing are crushed not so much by physical obstacles as they are by a miasma of repression, broken dreams, and resignation. A very dark film on the margins of "correct" filmmaking in China, Dong Ci Bian Wei paints the picture of a generation bulldozed by hopelessness. ~ Connor McMadden, Rovi