On the eve of the year 2000, two stories centered around money unfold in Beijing. One is the story of a merchant who was poisoned for money -- 1000 years ago. Trapped in a black bowl, the merchant's ghost encounters an old beggar, and regales him with the story of how he came to be inside a bowl. The other story begins in modern times: A debt collector handcuffs an old friend, a poet, who cannot pay back his debt. The poet, who cannot be free of his handcuffs until he returns the money to the debt collector, goes to pick up his lover, while still handcuffed to the debt collector — but the poet's lover too was a prisoner of the debt collector, who escaped, and so all three are become handcuffed together. "Flying Flying" participated in the Youth Forum of the Berlin International Film Festival in 2001, as a 'film banned after 1990.'