In pre-revolutionary China, two young girls, Chunhua and Yuehong Xing, rise through the ranks of Chinese opera, but with their artistic success comes a new series of personal and social challenges. After they're sold to a Shanghai opera and the revolution dawns, Yuehong radicalizes and devotes her career to politically progressive performances, while Chunhua flees to avoid turmoil. As the world changes around them, they fight to maintain their friendship.
Overnight, the sexy Wei Ming will become a successful novelist. But, desperate to get the money that she needs to cure her little daughter (and harassed by a rich, unscrupulous rake), she will end up eventually engage in luxury prostitution.
A policeman investigates an introverted signal-station manager suspected of raping a hotel clerk.
