Story spans three decades in the life of Liyun (Yong Mei) and Yaojun (Wang Jingchun), a married couple who, when we first meet them, both work in a large city factory in the early eighties, just as China starts to embrace capitalism. Also a strict one child per family rule is in effect. Their best friends are Hiyan (Liya Ai) and husband Shen Yingming (Xu Cheng), whose young son Hao Hao befriends Xing Xing, Liyun and Yaojin’s boy. One day Hao Hao coaxes Xing Xing down to the reservoir, and tragedy strikes. Liyun and Yaojun move to a small coastal town to start over, and eventually adopt orphan Xing Liu (Roy Wang). Meanwhile, as the years pass an exploding economy has made Hiyan and Shen Yingming wealthy. Will the two couples find a way to reconcile?

In “Son,” director Wang Xiaoshuai tells an affecting human story while portraying a country in transformation. He mixes up the chronology from scene to scene so we are forced to infer when the action is taking place. Confusing at times, it also holds our attention and invests us more deeply in the characters. Among a superb cast, Wang Jingchun stands out as a decent man trying desperately to live with a heavy, unrelenting grief, quietly resorting to the bottle to numb the pain. Though hardly an easy watch, this sprawling tale, touching on themes of guilt, healing and forgiveness, is an astonishing achievement.