Parting the dust storms of the Gobi Desert, a man arrives at the village theater. As he eagerly awaits the screening of Newsreel no. 22, a scruffy girl comes to steal the film reel. A fight breaks out between them, while an air of festivity envelopes the village ahead of the film screening. One Second by Zhang Yimou is set in Gansu Province during the Cultural Revolution. The scene of the entire village becoming a theater and everything that is projected on the screen turning into a movie, and the scene of the villagers washing the soiled film and hanging it behind the stage to fan it dry are unrealistically beautiful. Full of the director‘s nostalgia for the bygone era of film reels, this film is, in his own words, a "love letter to cinema." Liu Haocun was cast for the role of the orphan Liu through a fierce competition with one in three thousand chance of becoming "Zhang Yimou’s actor." (PARK Sun Young)