Yuan Muzhi plays an intellectual who flees the trouble in Shanghai to pursue the glamorous Wang Renmei only to join the Chinese resistance after the death of his friend.

Liang soon joins the resistance against the Japanese invaders, but Xin chooses to pursue a relationship with a glamorous and westernized widow in Qingdao.

After hearing that Liang has been killed, however, Xin has a change of heart and rushes to join the war effort.

[1] The story itself, with its tale of a wealthy man who learns to abandon the decadence of Western culture for self-sacrifice, was also a common theme among leftist films of the period.

The theme song of the movie, "March of the Volunteers", was sung by Gu Menghe and Yuan Muzhi.