Based on Zhou Keqin's excellent novel, Xu Mao and His Daughters weaves a story about the life and sufferings of Xu Mao, an aging peasant and his four daughters in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. They struggle to make ends meet since his wife's death. Preoccupied with worries, he loses touch with his maturing daughters. It takes the stubborn but kindly intervention of a woman making a governmental inspection tour to cause father and daughters to appreciate their loving family.

Beauty saloons compete with each other.

A young woman in the 1920s has a hard life and learns sympathy for her own mother's situation.

Special agent Xiang Cheng and his men are sent to Russia to investigate a Chinese crime ring.