Given that this is set partly in Chengdu, all I could think about was Chengdu’s famous ear cleaning services.

With a view to his mating, the one and only object of his life, the Night Peacock moth is gifted with a wonderful prerogative. He is able to discover the object of his desire in spite of distance, obstacles and darkness.

– Jean-Henri Fabre, The Life of the Caterpillar

The go-to mainstream actor for artsy films, Liu Ye, joins Liu Yifei in the first film to be screened in China by writer and director Dai Sijie since Balzac and the Seamstress in 2002.

Night Peacock 夜孔雀 tells of flute player Elsa (Liu Yifei) and her romantic escapades with first a scholar of silk (Leon Lai) and then a tattoo artist (Liu Ye).  Yu Shaoqun joins the cast as the silk scholar’s Leon Lai’s son, a Sichuanese opera singer who appears to be into cross-dressing and may be in a mental asylum based on the trailer.

I’m guessing that Liu Yifei is banking on this to be a career-changing film after a series of poor commercial flicks and poor acting. Hopefully she can prove herself this time.  The film airs on May 20th.