A tragic figure pitted into the limelight of fame by the unpredictable forces of history, Ri is caught between competing nationalisms and political conflicts, her life and career sculpted by the turbulence of war and global power shifts.
The film follows Li Xianglan/Ri Koran's life from childhood to adulthood, portraying her tragic identity crisis and internal cross-cultural conflict.
Her father was an expert in Chinese history and literature, and belonged to a group of transnational Japanese intellectuals who wanted to build a pan-Asian utopia through Sino-Japanese cooperation.
However, as visually represented through a fiery dream sequence where Chinese and Japanese bullets shatter her from both sides, she was really expressing her helplessness in being caught in the crossfires of two nations she loved dearly.
However, in that highly politicized era, becoming a pop cultural icon entailed becoming a propaganda tool for powerful forces beyond Li Xianglan's control.
She represents the pan-Asian imaginary rather than a fixed singular ethnic figure, typically involving a non-Japanese female character falling in love with a Japanese male.
Dissatisfied with their daughter's upcoming execution, her parents (at the time both under arrest in Beijing) decide to produce a copy of her birth certificate proving Li is actually an ethnic Japanese by the name of "Yoshiko Yamaguchi" and have Lyuba smuggle it into Shanghai.