When relationship problems with her boyfriend erupt, she flees to the resort city of Beidaihe and takes a room in a small hotel where she contemplates committing suicide.

Over the course of several days, he takes her to eat seafood dinners, extolling the virtues and health benefits of the diet, including a claim that it makes him a more potent lover.

While some critics found the camerawork to be "routine" for the medium,[2] one shot in particular was filmed not by the cinematographer, Liu Yonghung, but by Zhu Wen himself.

Zhu has stated in an interview that this constituted the first time he had ever touched a camera and that he was so pleased with the naturalistic effect, that he ended up keeping the shot.

[1] In some ways, the inability to screen Seafood in China led Zhu to direct his second feature, South of the Clouds (2004) within the state-run film system, so that he would have a work that he could show to family and friends.