Dying to Survive

An aphrodisiac peddler, Cheng Yong, is in financial trouble. His store has not been making profits for a long time and his father urgently needs a large sum of money for brain surgery. One day a man wearing thick layers of surgical masks comes to his shop. He asks Cheng to bring a cheap drug from India in return for a large sum of money. Due to patent protection, the Swiss drug Imatinib is very expensive and cannot be afforded by most leukemia patients in China. However, a special inexpensive generic version of it is available in India. Desperate for money, Cheng agrees to risk smuggling the drug into China. As more chronic myelogenous leukemia patients start to buy drugs from him, Cheng becomes rich. His motivation started to change after he witnessed devastated patients whose family has been pushed into poverty by costly cancer treatments, walk away with hope for the future.