During a famine in ancient times, a poor widow named Wang Lianhua climbs into the hills to dig for wild vegetables and finds herself in a modern film studio backlot. With nothing but her own experience of hardship and an unpolished honesty no drama school could teach, she takes work as an extra playing corpses, and her crying scenes stop a director cold. Moving between the two eras, she trades what she earns on set for grain and oil to carry home.