Art versus commerce, friendship versus status, independence versus conformity — values clash and collide in Yang’s study of an increasingly Westernised country heading into the twenty-first century without moral guideposts. Moving from breakout hit A Brighter Summer Day’s investigation of the past to a critical survey of the present, A Confucian Confusion charts the tangled web of emotional and professional manipulations among a group of young urbanites with Molly, director of a floundering public-relations firm, at its centre. Alienated by the childish fiancé who bankrolls her enterprise – and frustrated by the demands of assistant Qiqi, and her own fiancé, Ming – Molly lashes out at everyone in her path and threatens to dismantle the company altogether. Injecting comedic elements into his patented brand of earnest soul-searching, Yang finds humour as well as pathos in the desperate behaviour of a lost, lonely generation.