A steel plant staff is in conflict over whether to use domestic materials or continue importing from the Soviet Union after the Soviet Union adopts an anti-Chinese position in 1972.

Sports gain acceptance among workers at a meat processing plant.

The police try to recover the blueprint of a newly designed submarine after it is stolen by enemy spies.

A critical hit during one of China’s most politically charged periods, Zheng’s follow-up to his 1959 anniversary epics merged Soviet-style socialist realism with his own breakthroughs in film technique, specifically his use of continuous camera movement in the spirit of traditional Chinese scrolls. Tractor-kino at its finest, the film revolves around two rural lovers—one struck with a deadly disease—and their eventual survival thanks to socialist medical advances.