The film, supposedly based on a true story, follows a young performance artist, Qi Lei, who attempts to create a masterpiece centred on the theme of death.

[3] Canadian scholar Erik Bordeleau has interpreted Frozen as an allegory of the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China.

[5] Actor Jia Hongsheng was selected to play Qi Lei, a performance artist who decides to make his own death his final work.

Jia would go on to star in other sixth generation films, notably with director Lou Ye in Weekend Lover (1994) and Suzhou River (2000).

Several key scenes required actor Jia Hongsheng to recreate performance art, such as soap-eating, and in the film's climax, self-freezing.