It stars Ivens as he travels in China and tries to capture winds on film, while he reflects on his life and career.

The film blends real and fictional elements; it ranges from documentary footage to fantastical dream sequences and Peking opera.

Next to a fast-spinning windmill, a young boy enters a large toy aeroplane and says he will fly to China.

Sun Wukong turns up and pulls the plug to the representative's microphone, and makes the loudspeakers play Western pop music instead.

Ivens therefore buys a large number of replicas from local tourist shops to create his own army, which he arranges and films, together with choreographed men dressed up in terracotta warrior costumes.

At Ivens' camp in the Gobi Desert, an old woman approaches and says she can summon the wind by drawing a magic figure.

The woman draws in the sand, and heavy wind begins to blow in the previously calm desert.

[1] In The New York Times, Caryn James wrote: "Shot between 1984 and 1988, the film is dominated by the presence of Ivens, then in his late 80's.

... A Tale of the Wind, with its scenes of dreams, dramatized myths and real life, suggests the way this old man's creativity is bound to the natural landscapes, cultural images and personal memories that flow through the film."

Trying to define the film, James wrote: "At a press conference the other day, Miss Loridan said that she and Ivens were working in a 'no man's land between Lumiere and Melies', between the two great early film makers who defined realism and fantasy.