Alex is a high school senior, living with his reporter father in Toronto. When his father is offered the chance to travel to China to cover the Russian visit, Alex is ambivalent. He’s interested in going to China but doesn’t take his father’s work seriously. He believes his father is an obsessive daredevil and takes too many chances on the job. Alex himself prefers to contemplate and organize. He enjoys maps and military history. When he is thrown into the chaos of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, he is deprived of all the comforts he is used to and begins to re-evaluate the role of journalism in maintaining democracy. He sees how the students who rescue him are true heroes, not the soldiers he previously revered.

Ted, Alex’s reporter father, is always desperate to get the story. No chance is too dangerous for him. He is exuberant when they arrive in China and wants to take Alex around with him. This changes when Ted begins to see what harm could come to him and his son. Unfortunately, he is not able to protect Alex at the moment of the massacre and the two are separated. When they are reunited, their bond is strengthened, as they both have new appreciate for their personal freedom and each other.