Among the indigenous tribes in the mountains of Vietnam, 13-year old Mu thinks she knows everything her 16-year old sister Paj, a tour guide, knows - until they encounter a sex tourist.

Thu lives in a village near the river with Lan, her single mother working as a fruit seller. Thu befriends a boy in the village, Đăng, who lost his mother at a young age and is thus mainly raised by his grandparents. As the two children bond, they find in each other the parental figures they have been longing for.

Set in the 60s during the war, Vietnamese soldiers have to overcome numerous hardships and dangers to build an oil pipeline all the way from the north to supply the fighters in the South.

Nguyen Vu is the sole survivor of his family who was executed by the empress of Vietnam. Upon discovering that his family may have been framed for crimes they did not commit, he sets out to bring justice and clear his family name.