Four protagonists, two generations and two continents are interwoven in Merry-Go-Round, a grand yet intimate narrative about leaving and returning. It starts in San Francisco, where Eva works as a traditional Chinese doctor, and young, roaming Merry hears that she has leukemia. Both return to Hong Kong: Merry looks up Allen, with whom she had previously corresponded, and gets a job in the Tung-Wah guardhouse for coffins run by the grumpy Hill. Eva tries to prevent the same Allen, her cousin, from selling the family business. In the meantime, the older woman thinks back to an affair she had in the 1930s.
—International Film Festival Rotterdam