[2] The film focuses on the suffering of Chinese who were imprisoned in a forced labor camp called Jiabiangou in the Gobi Desert in winter 1960 under Mao Zedong on the grounds that they were "rightist elements".

The film tells of the harsh life of these men, who coped with physical exhaustion, extreme cold, starvation and death on a daily basis.

[3] The background to the setting is Mao Zedong's disastrous Hundred Flowers Campaign from 1956–57, during which Chinese intellectuals were advised to contribute their opinions on national policy issues.

[4] Most of the film was shot in a simple dugout – referred to as "Dormitory 8" – lined with bedding where the men live; in the daytime, they work on a giant desert project that covers 10,000 acres.

The work is intense, but dealing with hunger is the prisoners' and the film's main focus: shortage means that even rats are eaten; consumption of human corpses is not unheard of.