The Grade-Fourth Railway Station

During the Cultural Revolution, Xie Zhixin (Yuan Yue) learns that his son Xie Feng (Ma Xiaowei)'s lover Ulan (Zhang Xiaolei) is the daughter of his student, Lu Yan (Gao Ying), from many years ago. After watching Ulan's performance, Xie leaves in a hurry; Ulan mistakenly believes that Xie's father has scorned her because he knows that her mother is a "rightist."

In 1930's Shanghai, Wu Sunpu, chief executive of the Shanghai Yuhua Silk Company, faces many struggles: with plant workers, with strikers, others in his industry, and most of all with bourgeois comprador Zhao Botao. Capitalists and other figures in Shanghai's industrial and commercial community come and go. The strategy finally comes down between Wu and Zhao. Zhao plans to take over Wu Sunpu's plant with support from Americans. Wu faces a choice of surrender to Zhao or bankruptcy. He considers suicide, but decides to go on vacation with his wife on Mount Lushan. When they leave Shanghai at midnight, Wu paces the deck of the ship, reviewing his life and fate.