In Xie’s third film, he perfected the combination of melodrama and socialist realism that would bring him fame. The film opens in the prerevolutionary past with a youthful love affair between an athlete and the daughter of his team’s owner. When their passion ends unhappily, the athlete goes on to become a coach, while his lover is forced into an arranged marriage. Xie uses basketball as a metaphor for sociopolitical action, with segments of daily practice used as an occasion to extol the ethics of collectivity. At the same time, the film’s emphasis on the intense echoes of past happiness has earned it comparisons to Max Ophüls.