Digital Library of Chinese Theatre 中国戏剧资料库

It is autumn 1996 and the Chuanjiang Passenger Ship No 5 leaves Hankou to sail through the spectacular and dangerous Three Gorges. But her crew is occupied with domestic matters. The outgoing Captain fears that his adopted son, the incoming Captain, will lose his long-suffering fiancée unless he marries her the moment the voyage is over. The lonely Zhan Lan Lan wants to divorce her husband, the deck officer Xiao Lao Jiu, for he spends so much time on the river. Tian Ge, a highly-respected teacher returning home after a long absence is, it transpires, the long lost wife of the old Captain; but what is her relationship with her husband’s son?

They all long for reconciliation and reunion, fulfilled in legend by the mystical appearance of a red sailing boat on the river and threatened in reality by the demands of the Yangtze and uncertainties about the engineering works in the Three Gorges. The river has in fact one more challenge for the crew before it offers them resolution at journey’s end.

时值1996年秋天，长江5号客船离开汉口顺利通过雄伟壮观险象环生的三峡，可船员们正在忙碌着。即将离任的队长担心他的养子，即将就任的的船长将会失去他长期分居的未婚妻，除非航行一结束他就娶她。孤独寂寞的张兰兰想和丈夫，大副肖老九离婚，因为他长年穿梭于江流之上。田歌，一位备受尊敬的老师，老船长久未逢面的妻子出现了，但她和她丈夫的儿子是什么关系呢?

他们都渴望和解和团聚，在传说中神秘的长江之上的红帆船上实现，在现实中受到长江之险和三峡船只操作的不确定性威胁。船员们结束航程之前，长江实际上不止是三峡一个艰难险阻。