Global Voices

A Young Patriot

Zhao Changtong is a teenage art student born in 1990 and known in the streets of Pingyao as "Mr. Patriotic Maniac." Despite his passion for the "new China," his family lives in poverty and with the constant tension of a shifting political landscape. Filmmaker Du Haibin follows Zhai over three years as he becomes a young adult and must reconcile his own failures and the economic and political realities of modern China with his fervent love of the communist ideal.