Five girls grow up in China during the first years of the twentieth century. When they become adults they have to learn that women are almost without rights. Other women close to them are suppressed in the most brutal way. When Mingtao is to marry a mentally deficient but rich man, she and her friends decide to escape and to search for the mythical "garden" where a woman's life is worth living.

Five Girls and a Rope

Manchuria 1941: Caught sleeping with his Japanese major's mistress, Manchurian collaborator Tung Fei (Jackson Liu Hsiu-hsien) fatally shoots the man and flees for his life. Overcome by fatigue after hours of travel on horseback, Tung eventually awakens to find himself under the care of hunter Suen (Dick Wei) and his daughter, Ironic (Hsu).

Iron Sister

Gun and Wai are two young ladies who grow up in a church during wartime. One day, an army passes by the church near the border, and the two young ladies volunteer to take them to the base of the hostile force. On the way there, they witness the hardship and cruelty that the war has brought to their peaceful, holy-land. The war has also given them a better vision of love and understanding of humanity. The war is now over, and they must decide whether to leave the church for new found love or stay living alone.