The first post-1949 Mainland production to shoot on location in Hong Kong, this seagoing drama has a dual timeframe connecting pre– and post–Cultural Revolution China, along with introducing one of the era’s most popular movie theme songs. It was a milestone in the career of Mainland film icon Yu Yang (who also directed the film) and provided Paul Fonoroff with what proved to be his largest screen role: a liuxuesheng (foreign exchange student) majoring in oceanography and serving his apprenticeship on a ship helmed by Yu, marking the captain’s return to the sea after the tumultuous Cultural Revolution.
The Bed opens with Jamie, a young man, looking round an old, deserted country house. Through flashback we see Jamie as a boy, scared out of his wits when his older sister and her boyfriend, left alone in the house to babysit Jamie for the evening, play cruel tricks on him.
A journalist sets out to report on a minor earthquake in the Australian outback, and finds that the tremor was a result of a small nuclear explosion - part of an extortion threat that has the government fearing nuclear blackmail.
A hunting party arrives at a lodge in the Tatra mountains in Slovakia, where one woman in the party had “accidentally” shot and killed her first husband some time ago.
