Xiao Mei has been a prostitute in Beijing for three years. Around the time of the Chinese New Year she decides to go to Beidaihe, a small seaside town, in order to commit suicide. With winter approaching, the resort is covered in snow and ice and the tourists have all left. There she bumps into a local policeman, Deng Jianguo. He figures out her plan to kill herself and uses extreme and unusual methods to try and stop her. Xiao Mei crosses over to Shanhaiguan to get rid of him, but Deng follows her and brings her back, heralding the start of a somewhat complicated relationship. Shot originally using a digital format, Seafood is an existential portrait of the relationship between two lonely people on the fringes of contemporary Chinese society – a prostitute and a corrupt, violent cop – a relationship with no future. Nevertheless, the presence of seafood in the film symbolises the power of life, which has to go on, no matter what.