Part I
"Qiu Ju Fights a Lawsuit"
Starring: Gong Li / Liu Peiqi / Lei Kesheng / Ge Zhijun / Yang Liuchun / Zhu Wanqing / Cui Luowen / Yang Huiqin / Wang Jianfa / Lin Zi / Ye Jun
In a small mountain village in northwest China, Wang Qinglai (Liu Peiqi), the husband of the village woman Qiu Ju (Gong Li), was kicked and injured by the other party during an argument with the village chief, and could no longer do farm work, so he could only lie in bed all day. Qiu Ju was angry, but the theory of finding the village chief could not be ignored by the other party, and in order to get a breath, she filed a complaint against the village chief to the township government. After the township government Li Gong'an patiently mediated, the village chief promised to compensate the Qiu Ju family for economic losses, but he threw the banknote directly on the ground and refused to apologize.
Although the village chief's behavior was arbitrary and unreasonable, everyone still felt that the matter could be ended, but Qiu Ju was enraged and vowed to ask for an explanation, so she came to the county town with a big belly and her sister and began a long road of complaint.
Part II
"Alive"
Starring: Ge You / Gong Li / Jiang Wu / Niu Ben / Guo Tao / Zhang Lu / Ni Dahong / Xiao Cong / Dong Fei / Liu Tianchi / Dong Lifan / Huang Zongluo / Liu Yanjin / Li Lianyi / Yang Tongshun
Based on Yu Hua's novel of the same name.
Fu Shao Fugui (Ge You) is addicted to gambling, and his wife Jiazhen (Gong Li) leaves him with his daughter Fengxia after repeatedly trying to persuade him to no avail, and that night, Fugui loses all the family property and dies of his father, and is forced to live by selling his mother's jewelry to rent a broken house. A year later, Jia Zhen pulled Fengxia into her arms and returned home with her newborn son Youqing, and Fugui changed his past and began to live a peaceful and self-kept life by acting in shadow puppetry.
However, during the civil war, Fugui was arrested by the Kuomintang as a laborer, and after some tossing and turning and finally returning to his hometown to reunite with his family, Fengxia became dumb due to illness, and in the later Great Leap Forward Movement and Cultural Revolution, although he received some small blessings, adversity has always been with him.
Part III
"Shake, Shake, Shake to Grandma's Bridge"
Starring: Gong Li / Li Baotian / Li Xuejian / Sun Chun / Fu Biao / Statement / Liu Jiang / Jiang Baoying / Wang Xiaoxiao / Yang Qianqian / Gao Ying / Gao Weiming
In the 1930s, Tang Shuisheng, a rural teenager, came to Shanghai to join the sixth uncle (Li Xuejian), and under his recommendation, became a personal servant of the song and dance queen Xiao Jinbao (Gong Li). Xiao Jinbao is the woman of Tang Lao ye (Li Baotian), a bully in Shanghai Beach, but has an affair with his subordinate Song Erye, who has been coveting Tang Ye's seat for a long time.
The sudden death of Uncle Six made Don suspicious, and he took Xiao Jinbao, Aquatic and others to a small island where only the widow Cuihua and her children were taken refuge, and ordered that the familiar faces of the island be killed. In her relationship with Cuihua, Xiao Jinbao has a different understanding of life, and gradually becomes very dissatisfied with Don's cruelty, but her fate is also in the hands of Don.
Part IV
"The Big Red Lantern Hangs High"
Starring: Gong Li / Ma Jingwu / He Saifei / Cao Cuifen / Zhou Qi / Kong Lin / Jin Shuyuan / Ding Weimin / Chu Xiao
Song Lian (Gong Li), who had just been studying in college for half a year, was forced by her greedy mother to marry into the Chen family compound and became the fourth aunt of the old man. Chen Mansion has an old rule, and the aunts and wives should stand in front of their own houses in the evening and wait for the big red lanterns sent by the next person to mean that they were "lucky" by the old master.
At first, because of her status as a "newcomer", Song Lian was most favored by the old master, but she was also squeezed by the other three aunts, especially the second aunt (Cao Cuifen), who hid the knife in laughter. Because he was not deeply involved in the world, Song Lian, who was rebellious and strong in nature, was eager to fight for a breath, so that Ji became a red man around the old master, did not want to be seen through, and finally lost to the hands of the second aunt and caused tragedy. Although the experience of the third aunt (He Saifei) is very different from that of Song Lian, she cannot escape her fate.
Part V
Heroes
Starring: Jet Li / Liang Chaowei / Maggie Cheung / Chen Daoming / Zhen Zidan / Zhang Ziyi
At the end of the Warring States period, Yan, Zhao, Chu, Han, Wei, Qi, and Qin Qixiong rose up together, but the Qin state was the most powerful, eager to annex the Six Kingdoms to unify the world, the King of Qin (Chen Daoming) thus became the enemy of the Six Kingdoms, and different stories of Qin in various places have been staged, among which the Zhao Assassins Remnant Sword (Liang Chaowei), Fei Xue (Zhang Manyu), Ru Yue (Zhang Ziyi), and Changkong (Zhen Zidan) have not slept a peaceful sleep in ten years because of their superb sword skills.
One day, it was heard that the sword and others had been killed by a Qin swordsman named Nameless (Jet Li), and the King of Qin was anxious to summon him to the temple to meet him, but he was also cautious and careful to prevent deception, and the contest between the King of Qin and the Nameless Fighting Wisdom and Courage began.
Part VI
"Jinling Thirteen Chao"
Starring: Christian Bell / Ni Ni / Zhang Xinyi / Huang Tianyuan / Han Xiting / Zhang Chuu / Tong Dawei / Cao Kefan / Watanabe Dulang / Huang Haibo / Dou Xiao / Nie Yuan / Gao Hu / Qin Hao / Li Yuemin / Bai Xue / Yuan Yang Junzi
In 1937, the Japanese army invaded Nanjing, and in the war, the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties was reduced to ruins, and many Chinese soldiers and civilians were trapped in the city. Under the command of the commander Li Dawei (Tong Dawei), the remnants of a dozen members of the Nationalist Army's German Ordnance Teaching Team rescued a group of female students from the Church School from the Japanese army, and Instructor Li and others lost the opportunity to go out of the city. Shu Juan (Zhang Xinyi), who survived, and the other students returned to The Church of Wenchester, along with John Miller (Christian Bale), an American who had been hired to collect the priest's body. At this time in the city of Nanjing, the fleeing people flocked to the safe area and the church to seek shelter, and fourteen dusty women forcibly entered the church for refuge, among which Yumo (Ni Ni), who is proficient in English, hoped to use John's identity to provide more protection for the group. The walls of the church cannot stop the iron hooves of the Japanese army, and the people in the church will face the choice of life and death...