I saw this at the Berlin Film Festival, and it is one of the best films of the year imo.

I actually like the title Little red Flowers, as it sounds so safe and nice before you watch the film, but after the experience is over, you see it in a different light. 
Do you know if this film was allowed to be shown in China, hengcs? I would suspect such an effort to be banned, as I thought it was a direct attack on authorities of all sorts. I found the "meandering" you mention to be actually a plus. The direction was imo so assured that it had no problems adressing a wide variety of issues and breaking out of the narrow "genre" concept which it at first established. Breaking some "rules" of established narrative filmmaking and storytelling continuity felt like part of the message to me. 
I hope this gets into regular distribution, but I agree that it isn't a children's film and shouldn't be marketed as such. 
I also found the screenplay and story to be excellent and had no problems with the shifts and ellipses. I think it helped that some things remain unexplained. I agree the actors are great.

Definitely a must see.

Btw, have you seen any other films by Zhang Yuan, hengcs? 
I only have his Erzi (1996) on VHS, for which he won the Tiger award and the FIPRESCI prize at Rotterdam, but which I didn't find absorbing enough. Maybe I should revisit it.