Little Deng from Shanghai is only five years old but already she dreams of winning gold medals on the balance beam. Every day she trains in the Lu-Bay Youth Athletic School. There is one exercise Deng dreads, in particular, the one where she hangs from the high bar for at least ten minutes. It hurts, it really hurts and it makes her cry. In the evenings, her mother treats the open blisters on Deng’s hands. All the hopes of this impoverished farming family rest on the sporting success of their only daughter. A'nan’s fate is similar. His family came from Canton with their three sons and opened up a little shop. Two of their boys have already failed to make the gymnastics team, only A'nan is still there. He cries a lot but he has talent, says his coach Yu. A'nan’s mother is ferociously determined. Over the course of a year, Chinese director Chao Gan followed the progress of children aged between five and seven years old in the Lu-Bay Youth Athletic School in Shanghai. He turned his camera on the children, their families and the trainers, capturing haunting images and scenes. The pressure on these children is huge. In addition to the daily drills in the gym halls, and the physical pain, the film also shows the psychological stresses to which they are exposed. Because it is the poor, the migrant workers, the hopeless, who dream of gold in a booming China.