Stanley Kwan's view in this film is both personal and collective memories towards Hong Kong in 1997. He cites one famous line from Cantonese opera "Princess Chang Ping", "I deny, I deny, but in the end I cannot deny" as a metaphor for Hong Kongers' troubled minds when they have to recognize their identity as Chinese. To make a statement of the theme, Kwan adopts a complicated structure, mixing excerpts from his previous films, his stage play, even the soundtrack of Wong Kar-wai's Days of Being Wild.