Before the liberation of Shanghai, Nationalist agent Zhang Rong is ordered to blend in with the captive workers of the Baotong Mill and wait for a chance to act. After the liberation, he returns to the factory, disguising himself as a far-left agitator and causing friction between the workers and management.

A novelist uses all his money to buy gifts for the woman he loves who in turn is also seeing a business man, using him for expensive presents. As a consequence the writer is unable to pay the rent, whilst the womans family goes hungry as her fathers business suffers. A joyful comedy that expresses the dangers of consumerism for the careless spender.

1930's China. The village of a poor family is taken over by the occupying Japanese army. One son, Zhongliang, leaves his wife and young son to join a medic group for the Chinese Army. The other son, Zhangmin goes into hiding to protect his family. The focus shifts back and forth from the brothers' parents and Zhongliang's wife and son to Zhongliang's newfound life of luxury in a town not too far away. The plight of Zhongliang's mother, his wife, Sufan and her son, Kongeson is contrasted with Zhongliang's rise in a flourishing company.

Hope to the World

As most families only want to have boys, women end up becoming rare and precious.

This tale of familial warfare and sacrifice takes place in hard-pressed Shanghai at the end of the 1940s. Hu Zhiqing can barely support his wife and children, and his situation is worsened by the unexpected arrival of his mother, brother and sister-in-law. When he is fired by his unscrupulous boss, the whole family becomes embroiled in one emotional/economic struggle after another.

After a break-up, a college professor, Xiao, molds his maidservant, Yu, into an independent, modern woman, then marries her. However, their relationship is interrupted by the war - Yu insists on volunteering her help, while Xiao longs for a stable family life.

At a Shanghai apartment, Mr Hou, a Nationalist official, gets ready to move to Taiwan upon the imminent defeat of the KMT during the Civil War. Mrs Hou gives an ultimatum to the rest of the tenants to move out on behalf of her husband, who is the "owner" of the flat and who is now planning to sell it. From the conversations with the rest, we find out that Hou has been a Hanjian during the Sino-Japanese War and that he has since taken over the apartment by force from the old landlord, Mr Kong. The tenants, including Mr Kong, Mrs Xiao, Little Broadcast (alias Mr Xiao, played by Zhao Dan) and a schoolteacher, Mr Hua, and his wife, initially plan to band together, but circumstances force them to find other ways out. Mr Hua tries to find a place to stay at the KMT-sponsored school he is teaching in. Little Broadcast and Mrs Xiao invest in black market gold. As the situation escalates, Mr Hua gets arrested by KMT agents and his young daughter falls desperately ill.

Four students in Shanghai have recently finished university. All are unemployed. Xu contemplates suicide but his friend Zhao talks him out of it. Zhao lives in a shabby room with just a flimsy wall of planks separating him from the room behind. Miss Yang, in town to take a factory job, moves in behind. Her nails into the wall knock Zhao's photos down. The unseen neighbours start playing tit for tat... Zhao gets a job as proofreader at a newspaper. He sees that pretty girl on the tram to work every day. He doesn't know her, but it's Miss Yang... Zhao is assigned to cover labour conditions for the paper. He is sent to a factory, the one where Miss Yang works...

The New Year's Gift is the story of some lucky money gifted to a girl. It then leaves her and passes from hand to hand.

Wenxiang is sent away to the mountains to focus on his studies. He stays in a nunnery, with which his family has a long history, and encounters a strange girl.

A college girl and a musician go to the front of the anti-Japanese war and fall in love.