With the fishermen's life on the southeastern coast in the early 1960s as its background, the film depicts a group of militia women who work both as fisher women and fighters defending their homes and the motherland.

History of filmmaking in China from its beginnings in the 1920s to 1982, featuring Shanghai cinema of 1930s; the progressive filmmakers; the organisation of filmmaking under the post-war communist government; the impact of the Cultural Revolution; the work of Xie Jin.