During China’s Cultural Revolution art collecting was one of the "bourgeois" activities to be purged. Nowadays, after the economic reforms, with the emergence of free-spending, nouveau riche collectors from mainland China, the Chinese art market is at the start of what may be an extended boom. Since Chinese art has also become red hot in the international contemporary art market, many Chinese pieces are being bought by foreigners and exhibited overseas.

Our main character Mr. Wang, 58, a naive old man who is still mentally living in the Mao era, and that has devoted his life to sculpting Chairman Mao, accidentally fells into the contemporary art market turmoil and becomes a political-pop artist. In order to maintain his activity under new international market rules he has to adapt his style, representing Mao in a eccentric way. Mr. Wang now has a crazy project: sculpting a 100-meter high Mao statue.

Through Mr. Wang and his circle we will enter into the intricacies of contemporary Chinese art, its contradictions and paradoxes.