Gifted university student Chu Ching-mao lives under the shadow of his hatred for his mother, whom he spied in an act of adultery as a young boy. His resultant ambivalence toward women threatens to ruin his relationship with his sage and forbearing girlfriend. She, along with his adopted parents, urges him to make peace with his mother and his past. Selected as the best film of its year by Taiwan's Society of Chinese Film Critics, the film provoked widespread debate in the conservative society of its day. Director Sung Tsun-shou, in some thirty films, most of them adapted from contemporary novels, applied a serene and unadorned style, incorporating closely observed details of everyday Taiwanese life, to transform melodramatic plots into powerful works of realism.