Geng Er returns to China from the United States in the 1960s and even the Cultural Revolution does not diminish his patriotism.

During the Japanese occupation, a group of communists are publishing a newspaper

San mao (3 hairs) was a very popular Chinese comic strip first published in 1935-37, continued from 1948 into the 1990s, about a young orphan boy struggling with life in Shanghai.

The clan law of the Yang family works against the relationships of a widow and her daughter until a new marriage law is enacted after liberation.

The passenger ship Haiyan, with more than a thousand people aboard, sails through a thick fog at night. Despite having the knowledge that there are reefs nearby, the captain refuses to stop or slow down.

Xiang Zi is a rickshaw boy who has always had a desire to excel and a thirst for freedom. He married Hu Niu who died of dystocia later. After her death, another girl, Xiao Fuzi, falls in love with Xiang Zi but they are separated by poverty. Xiang Zi works very hard in order to change his life, only to find that Xiao Fuzi is dead just as he begins to be hopeful for their future. Finally, Xiang Zi, an unflinching man, surrenders to that dark society.