More preoccupied with "history" than Wu's other works, My Time in the Red Guards is a record of his fascination with the missed moment, Mao's Cultural Revolution. In 1966, the Red Guards ironically represented the official avant-garde, a movement carried forward by youth determined to become heroes of the Revolution. Wu interviews people who had joined the Red Guards as high schoolers, most now successful professionals, some Party members. The miscalculations and cruelties of this extreme cultural campaign are spread out before us, detailed by personal recollection and further illustrated by old agit-prop newsreels. Misgivings and fond remembrance vie for position as the interviewees seem to confuse the nostalgia of youthful action with the excesses of historical fact.

　片子主要以五位曾经是红卫兵的人物访问构成，他们是：刘龙江(现在身份为北京一饭店经理)；胡晓光(现在身份为北京某公司干部)；徐友渔(现在身份为北京某研究所哲学研究员)；黄玲(现在身份为北京某研究所工程师)；田壮壮(现在身份为电影厂导演)。片子分为五段：1、长在红旗下；2、加入红卫兵；3、拿笔做刀枪；4、见到毛主席；5、砸烂旧世界；6、建立新世界；7、回到九二年。

수없이 많은 홍위병의 탄생지인 북경에서 우원강은 1년 간 “대 혁명의 오랜 기억”을 인터뷰했다. 그는 역사의 “매듭을 풀고"자 했으며, 한 시기를 “멈추고"자 희망했다. 이로써 우리는 역사의 움직임을 바라보고, 사람들이 진정 어떻게 살았는지 볼 수 있다.