In this breathtaking period drama, an important work in the Fifth Generation of Chinese cinema, teenage Songlian (Gong Li, from Red Sorghum, Ju Dou, and Farewell My Concubine), whose family is devastated by her father’s death, becomes another concubine of a wealthy man. She soon discovers that behind the palatial life of luxury in the master’s house, she and her fellow concubines are pitted against each other in a struggle for his affections. The situation inevitably leads to deception, jealous rages, and the revelation of each other’s darkest secrets.