Trinh Minh-ha returns to material shot in rural China in the early 1990s in an essayistic reflection on the rich and complex history of the country – and of the mediums of film, text and voice.
The film takes the notion of harmony in China as a site of creative manifestation, and draws from footage shot in 1993 and 1994, in Eastern and Southern China, specifically from provinces Anhui, Hubei, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangxi—linked to the remote origins of Chinese civilisation.
Since the 1980s, film artist and theorist Trinh Minh-ha has made one of the most advanced attempts in film history to give the fundamental conditions of the medium a (self-)critical form. In her new work, she returns to material – film and photography – she shot in southern and eastern China in the early 1990s, in an essayistic reflection on the rich and complex history of the country (and of the film medium). At its heart is the ancient Chinese principle of harmony as the basis of nature and existence. Trinh’s thought-provoking montage of image, sound and text deconstructs the authority traditionally assumed by all three. At the same time, the rural China we encounter in ‘What about China?’ is already a bygone world whose inhabitants and spaces are encapsulated in analogue film and video with an awareness and sensuality that testifies to the fundamentally ethical dimension of Trinh’s personal poetics.

本片描写了越南风景的三段恋曲：春季，乡下姑娘欣被大户人家雇为采摘白莲花的女工。每天望着荷花荡的风景，她都会跟其他女工哼唱民歌。她的歌声吸引了患麻风病的杜先生。她在为他抄送诗词的时候，两人产生了忘年之交；旱季，三轮车夫海偶然结识了妓女莲。她总在跟他描述星级酒店里的奢华生活，但是他却只是痴望着她。慢慢地，两个人的关系也发生了微妙的变化；雨季，越战老兵詹姆斯（哈威•凯特尔 Harvey Keitel 饰）在酒吧里邂逅了推销小贩伍迪，并从他贩卖的货物里发现了一枚越战时的打火机。詹姆斯对伍迪诉说着他跟妻女失散的离别之苦。此后，两人各自的情感均有所收获……
1999年圣丹斯电影节评审团大奖、最佳摄影奖，2000年美国独立精神奖、最佳摄影奖。