This film documents the journey of actress Jane Fonda and her husband – future California state senator Tom Hayden – through North and South Viet Nam in 1974. They travel from villages to towns talking with ordinary Vietnamese about their lives and the effects of the war on their lives, families, and communities.

Duong and Tho are two military intelligence officers tasked with investigating enemy positions. They arrive in a rural area and meet Kien, a guerrilla fighter. Kien's wife, who deeply loves her husband, fears that if he continues his activities, he will be targeted by terrorists, leading to the destruction of their family's happiness. For this reason, she tries to stop her husband and clashes with Tho.

In mid-1960s, groups of American paratroopers arrive at a Hmong village near the Vietnam-Laos border. Among the troops are former villagers who collaborated with the French; having returned home , they seek to win over the village’s support.

At a maternity ward in South Vietnam, a midwife adopts three orphaned children after their mothers, undercover Communist spies, go missing or die in action.

Tư Hậu is a common woman from a fishing village whose husband has gone away to fight in the revolution. She takes care of her young daughter as well as her aging father-in-law. Soon, her peaceful village is attacked.

The inhabitants of a small island in the delta of the turbulent Red River are doomed to poverty: floods wash away crops, livestock, and even people. From generation to generation, a legend is passed down about a kind dragon that can drink the river's water and save the village. But the dragon is a fairy tale, and the people have decided to block the treacherous river themselves. With extraordinary perseverance, fighting against the elements, the village population builds protective fortifications around the island.

Student Ba Duy sinks deep into heartbreak and a nihilistic street life when his sweetheart, Diem Huong, suddenly leaves him to marry an American diplomat.

When a post-war fishing firm fails to meet its expected demand, the chief accountant begins falsifying records and cutting down on wages paid to the already struggling fishers.

Lonely at old age, Định seeks solace in the companionship of a colleague who then moves in to live with him. Wary of an imminent marriage that will interfere with their inheritance, Định’s children scheme to break up his new relationship.

A young girl searches for her father, a soldier in the PAVN, after her mother and sister are killed during Christmas Bombings.