Following months of rejection Hung (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) is finally granted a student visa to the U.S. where she plans to bring her husband Nansan (Tong Leung Ka-fai) and 1-year-old son once naturalized. Corresponding through letters between New York and Shanghai twelve months go by and Hung abruptly sends word she wants a divorce. Soon there after Nansan's letters are deemed undeliverable. Nansan decides to leave their son with his parents and enter the United States illegally (by way of Mexico), travel to New York City, and locate his missing wife. Once there Nansan's map is a handful of Chinese urbanites that had been in contact with Hung for the last year in one fashion or another. His guide is an obnoxious 15-year-old Chinese-American prostitute (Man Hei-lin). Everywhere (and we mean EVERYWHERE) Nansan travels in New York City is decrepit and hopeless. The performances are slightly less one-sided. Tony Leung is fine as a grieving husband in search of his true love but when paired with Man the grounded actor is lost in the thick cloud of the teen's unrelenting belligerence. Maggie Cheung, in accordance with the film's pretentious nihilism, pulls out all of the stops. Everything "The Autumn Tale" (1987) did right "Farewell China" does wrong.