Sixteen-year-old An-ran gets into repeated trouble because she refuses blind obedience to authority, openly challenging and correcting a teacher who makes a mistake in class. She is different.
Huansheng Chen, an ordinary worker who prefer to live a quiet live could not get his wish simply because he had a friend who was a high ranking official, the state party secretary, and everyone wanted to utilize this relationships except himself.
Based on Zhou Keqin's excellent novel, Xu Mao and His Daughters weaves a story about the life and sufferings of Xu Mao, an aging peasant and his four daughters in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. They struggle to make ends meet since his wife's death. Preoccupied with worries, he loses touch with his maturing daughters. It takes the stubborn but kindly intervention of a woman making a governmental inspection tour to cause father and daughters to appreciate their loving family.