An observational documentary which carefully radiographs the working conditions in some of the Christmas ornament factories in the Chinese city of Yiwu, which hosts over 600 such establishments and probably one of the largest exporters of Christmas decorations to the West. Structured into chapters which show fragments of the workers’ daily life, the movie records, with rather lyrical meticulousness, the harsh working conditions, the overcrowded dormitories, the often-betrayed aspirations for a better life, and the market pressures which frequently corrupt family relationships. At every step, in every conversation captured by the camera, the capitalist dream mirage clashes with the realities of a collective still caught in the communist past of a country, the political and ideological idiosyncrasies of which lead to unsolvable conflicts in the lives and hopes of its citizens. (Monica Stan)