North by Northeast

In the northeast region of China two years after the Cultural Revolution, Li Zhanshan, an impotent policeman, is on the trail of a rapist. He consults Professor Cai Bin at the crime scene but the two men can't agree. Again and again the rapist eludes capture. Injured, Cai Bin returns to the city and Li Zhanshan gives up policing in favour of selling tofu. But chance contrives to offer solutions to both problems: Cai's aphrodisiac wine "cures" Li's impotence and "Mr. Tofu Li" discovers that the fugitive rapist was right under his nose. (Montreal World Film Festival)