'apple') is a 2007 Chinese drama film directed by Li Yu and starring Tony Leung Ka-fai, Fan Bingbing, Tong Dawei, and Elaine Jin.

[citation needed] Liu Pingguo (Fan Bingbing) and her husband, An Kun (Tong Dawei) are a young migrant couple from northeast of China who have moved to Beijing for a better life.

Golden Basin is owned and operated by Lin Dong (Tony Leung Ka-fai), a successful businessman and unabashed womanizer who is also from Guangdong Province.

After being released (presumably by Wang Mei, who has decided to divorce her husband), An Kun attempts to "repurchase" his child, to which Lin Dong promptly refuses.

Pingguo, who had moved into Lin Dong's home after birth with a nursemaid, gathers the money that An Kun had returned, and leaves the apartment, now free with her child.

[6] Additional complaints from the censors, however, were met with frustration from producer Fang Li, who made it clear that further cuts would damage the film's message.

In particular, a high-level meeting of Communist Party officials in the fall of 2007, as well as the run-up to the Olympics led to repeated delays for the domestic release of the film.

Hong Kong, with its own cinema censorship system independent of Mainland China and relatively less susceptible to government intervention, was so far the only place this film could officially reach the Chinese audience.

[14] Though Lost in Beijing had played briefly in the Tribeca Film Festival, it did not see a commercial release until a limited run in New York beginning on January 25, 2008.

Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter, for example, wrote that the film's "plot doesn't really hold up" and that "[while] the cast does well, [...] the demands of sudden changes of emotion are a bit overwhelming.

"[11] Derek Elley of Variety, however, appears to accept the dramatic licenses taken, and instead focuses on the film's excellent technical credits, and the performances of the four main leads.

Scott, of The New York Times, for example, praises the film's acting (particularly Elaine Jin and Tony Leung), but notes that these performances serve to cut "against the schematic artifice of its story.

Complying with SARFT demands, the filmmakers excised nearly 20 minutes from the film, including an entire subplot wherein Elaine Jin's character has an affair with Tong Dawei's younger man as revenge for her husband's infidelities.

[13] The very last scene in the New Yorker Films DVD release ends simply with Pingguo leaving Lin Dong's apartment, presumedly to start a life on her own.