The film documents a day in the life of Tiananmen Square in 1994, a mere five years after the crushing of a student-led democracy movement in 1989.
The events captured are considered "mundane" but illustrate the level of control exerted over the Square by the authoritarian government.
For one critic, the film "seem to suggest the ceaseless and draining effort the government must expend to maintain its awesome facade of monolithic power over its citizens.
After the protests were crushed, Zhang had opportunities to ride his bicycle around the Square from his apartment in the nearby Xidan neighborhood, noting both the quietness in the years following 1989 and the surplus of both uniformed and plainclothes policemen.
[3] Zhang filmed the most "mundane" things[3] for a period of twenty-four hours, in the process capturing both ceremony (the flag raising and lowering carried out every day by PLA soldiers) and every-day moments.