After his 2012 film When Night Falls ran afoul of authorities, Ying Liang was forced to resettle from the mainland to Hong Kong. The exiled dissident filmmaker distills the complicated feelings of trauma, anger, sorrow, displacement, frustration and resignation into A Family Tour and a protagonist whose pain and experiences mirror his own. When Yang Shu is invited to a Taiwan film festival, she grabs the chance to see her mother again. Her supportive husband, a Hong Kong native, arranges for her mom to travel from Sichuan to Taipei on a strictly monitored sightseeing tour. While tagging along the loud tour, the family quietly reunites for a short and most likely last time.