Middle-aged widower Xu Daquin never felt that he lived a day for himself. Since his youth, he always wanted to go to Yunnam, near Tibet. He imagines what his life would have been like bad he lived there. This imaginative "what if" was a right taken away from many Chinese people. But when he finally does get there, his life takes a funny twist when he meets a prostitute. While the film doesn′t really carry a dramatic story, Director Zhu Wen humorously tells a tale of his elders′ generation, who accept their reality but experience middle-age crises because they dreamed of a different life. Zhu Wen′s talent shines when he summarizes the life of a generation that is not bound in a form of an individual as part of history, but bound by daily life. Zhu Wen started his career as a novelist, and he has a talent for spotting that which is interesting within a dull life without adding toxic ingredients. Through a character that faces a life completely different from what he imagined, South of the Clouds softly watches over the discomfort of the modern Chinese in the middle of fast changing China. (Kim Young-jin)