At the beginning of the movie, Ruyi is a young girl. His father was blowing smoke into her face and saying: Opium is the beauty of this world. Ruyi is the eldest daughter of the Pang family. She grew up surrounded by smoke and is known as a poisonous woman. Ruyi is a product of the transition between the old and the new era. She has a kind of rebellion in her body. When she was a child, she overturned the mahjong table of a middle-aged woman. As a girl, she broke into the ancestral hall. After becoming the head of the family, she dismissed all the women who had served the master and young master.

Seeing Yu Zhongliang learning to ride a bicycle with him, she wanted to go to Beijing with Yu Zhongliang; she had a sense of breaking through the restrictions, but as the eldest daughter of the Pang family, she was powerless and she was not qualified. There is no ability to change one's own destiny. The substantive constraints are the forces of the older generation represented by the Seventh Eunuch and the rules they say cannot be broken, and what they imply is the inevitability of history and destiny.

The only person who can make Ruyi change his destiny is Yu Zhongliang. However, due to his childhood experiences, Yu Zhongliang had a hesitant and indecisive character. Ruyi wanted to sleep with Yu Zhongliang, but Yu Zhongliang refused for the first time. Ruyi thought it was because he smoked opium, and everyone said he was poisonous, so Yu Zhongliang was unwilling. .

Ruyi tried to fall in love with Duanwu. The relationship between Ruyi and Duanwu was the relationship between Yu Xiuyi and Yu Zhongliang. Duanwu, who knew the beauty of sex, embarked on the road of adultery with Ruyi. This can be said to be the first step in Ruyi's mistake. Later, Yu Zhongliang promised to take Ruyi away, but then reneged, leaving Ruyi alone. Ruyi repeatedly asked Yu Zhongliang, do you love me or not? Do you love me or not.

Yu Zhongliang was unwilling to answer anyway. It was not until he learned that Ruyi was getting married that he dared to shout out I love you. No matter how heartbreaking she screams, Ruyi will definitely not agree at this time. How desperate must a woman be to entrust her life to a man without love.

But Yu Zhongliang has always had a ruthless side in his character. He has a crazy possessiveness and desire for destruction. In such a harsh environment, Yu Zhongliang's character also became deformed. He became cruel and cruel, and when he could no longer bear it, he poisoned his brother-in-law, turning him into a living dead.

The night before Ruyi got married, he used the same method to roll cigarettes for Ruyi and put the same poison in the cigarettes. Ruyi was carried to the ancestral hall on the same chair, her eyes dull and empty, like history stagnant.

Ruyi is no longer a traditional woman, she has a new outlook on love, sex and marriage. She is a deformed product of the transition between old and new eras. She could break through, but chose to rely on Yu Zhongliang. She is probably just the light smoke of opium, harmless, no matter how beautiful it is, it just drifts away.

In the movie, Yu Zhongliang repeatedly kisses the woman's earlobe and uses his tongue to remove the woman's earrings. Women are always his playthings, and the atmosphere of the entire movie is full of morbidity.

And love is complicated, and it has nothing to do with romance in a specific era. They all have their own choices, but they are also the bearers of suffering chosen by history, so they are ultimately powerless.

Yu Zhongliang is a man who was stimulated as a child, so his personality became extremely complicated as he grew up. This is also directly related to his playing fairy dance in Shanghai. He played with women's feelings, and he felt that he was not worthy of it. He loves Ruyi, but after seeing Ruyi getting married with another man, he didn't even notice his jealousy.