When her husband is kicked in the groin by the village head, Qiu Ju, despite her pregnancy, travels to a nearby town, and later a big city to deal with its bureaucrats and find justice.

The leader feels insulted and beats Qinglai, kicking him so severely in the groin that he must see a doctor and be absent from work.

He still refuses to apologize and so Qiu Ju goes back to the big city and finds a lawyer who takes the case and files suit under a new law.

When sought for help, the headman, together with a group of local men, carries Qiu Ju to the hospital, where she gives birth safely to a healthy baby boy.

This is proven to not be the case, as the local policeman shows up to tell Qiu Ju that the X-rays has revealed that her husband suffered a broken rib.

Many of the street scenes in the cities were filmed with a hidden camera so the images are a sort of documentary of China during the time of Deng Xiaoping.

More recently, the film was re-released by Sony Pictures Classics as part of their Zhang Yimou collection (which also included new versions of Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern) on March 28, 2006.

An older, VHS cassette version of the film was also released in the United States by Columbia TriStar Home Video on January 17, 1995.