Having used film to examine modern society in each of his first three movies, Yang turned his lens to the 1960s and Taipei's Kuling Street for his fourth film. The film focuses on a teenage love affair that ended in the murder of a 14-year-old girl by a 14-year-old boy with a knife.
《恐怖份子》之後，一向以冷靜的電影語言觀照當代社會的楊德昌，把鏡頭的時空座標停留在民國四十九年，台北市牯嶺街發生一起駭人的少年情殺事件，一名十四歲男孩持刀殺死一名十四歲的少女。