Zang Guang-xing is a veteran soldier from Mainland China who married a young Taiwanese woman. He has been working as a supervisor in a construction company for seven years. Everyday he rides the same motorbike to work. He suffers enough misery from riding that motorbike, and dreams of buying a car. So he asks around for decent second-hand cars. His son doesn't like any car he chooses. His wife, a typical Taiwanese woman who lives frugally, shaves any penny she can. She is the one who pays for the family's new car. They go out on trips happily, and become the envy of the neighborhood. Zhang thus gets the new car he's always dreamed of, but he starts to worry about it getting dirty, because it's simply too new, too nice for him. The car thus becomes his son's vehicle. He rides the old bike to work again, just like he has during all these years.

Ti Hung's parents die when she is twelve. When she is sixteen, she determines to change her fate, swearing to rise from her poverty. She becomes famous for her embroidery and eventually marries into a rich family, but tragedy ensues.

A young man from the country comes to Taipei to search for his sister from whom he has heard nothing during the past year. Beginning in a tenement slum, the young man travels through the city's lowlife, where street hustlers sell fake Rolex watches and other contraband, gangs fight each other, and the ubiquitous sex businesses ply their trade. The young man befriends a rich teenage girl and a young prostitute as he and a hustler who knew his sister search for her through a trail of clues leading to restaurants, dance joints, and brothels.

The rebellious and free-spirited Li Lin and the introverted Wu Ai-hua are best friends who grow up together in the military dependents' village. However, they both fall in love with pilot He Kang, their mutual childhood friend. After He Kang is killed in a crash, the village only reminds the heartbroken girls of the tragedy. They escape to Taipei and work as hostess and accountant, earning a living from American soldiers on leave from Vietnam. The girls reunite with Michael, an American flight instructor, at the club. Michael ardently pursues Li Lin, but struggling to forget He Kang, Li Lin rejects Michael' s proposal. Having taken different paths, the two girls eventually return to their childhood village, reminiscing about the bonds of the past.

Cheng Chu and Cheng Lin are brothers, who grow up in a rather ill-off family. Chu later becomes a gang leader while Lin as a senior high student. Lin is under the pressure of college entrance exams and becomes restive. Ah-Chiang, Lin's boyhood friend deserts the army and runs away with military weapons. He hides in Lin's rented house, shoots a policeman to death by accident and flees with Lin. They kidnap a fashion model, Sophia...

Five young people, Ding-tsu, Mei-huei, Nai-bao, Ching-tsu and San-mao are good friends. They don't like school and always cause trouble. Since Ding-tsu's parents are getting divorced, he feels depressed and decides to go on an island journey. The four other young people and Mei-huei's friend Hsiu-hsiu also join him in the journey. On the way, they have to face many challenges...

A young woman urgently seeks to navigate the maze of contemporary Taipei and find a future. She hopes that her boyfriend Lung is the key to the future, but Lung is stuck in a past that combines baseball and traditional loyalty that leads him to squander his nest egg bailing her father out of financial trouble.

A coming-of-age story about a young brother and sister whom spend a pivotal summer in the country with their grandparents.