The wife of a prominent psychiatrist can't find her marriage certificate one day. This "jiehunzheng" is all important. Without it, the family officially has never existed, including the daughter. The couple go on a wild goose chase through the Chinese bureaucracy, meeting catch-22 all the way....they need a certificate to get a new one, etc. They even journey back to the People's Commune where they met, now the site of modern private enterprises where nobody even recalls the former occupants.

The film is set in 1949, as the members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China prepare to establish a new Chinese state, the People's Republic of China.