A failed date throws Xu Qiu, a sharp, self-possessed designer played by Sandra Ma, together with Chen Yuzhou, a sweetly slippery aspiring novelist played by Edward Chen. The potential one-night fling keeps changing shape as the two drift through Beijing after dark, pulled through comic interruptions, awkward detours, and conversations that grow more confessional the closer morning gets. Zhao Badou, a screenwriter making his feature directing debut, takes a stroll in the romance lane of Before Sunrise, but gives the fantasy a modern Chinese snap: horny, funny, guarded, and unexpectedly sincere. Clever without getting smug and romantic, Crossing A Dawn catches that dangerous little hope of meeting someone at exactly the wrong time and deciding, against better judgment, to keep walking. The film played in competition at the Beijing International Film Festival.