Adapted from the novel Green River Daydreams by noted Chinese writer Liu Heng (who also wrote the original novel of Judou), Memoirs in China tells the stories of two rich families in late-Qing dynasty China, when the country was in turmoil. Popular actor Zhang Guoli, who also serves as producer, plays the paranoid patriarch of the Cao family. He arranges his Western-educated son to marry the daughter of the Zhengs, only to sow seeds of conflict between the two clans. Memoirs in China is a big-budget production that costs well over 50 million yuan. It Directed by Zhang Li of Towards the Republic fame, the big-budget production co-stars Hong Kong actress Athena Chu, Zhu Yuchen & Song Jia.