A man tries to raise his two sons and two daughters under some of the most adverse conditions known to man. The father operates a horse-drawn cart, but in a city that is modernizing after the destruction of the Korean War, automobiles are making carts obsolete. The children are experiencing difficulties as well. The eldest son has flunked the bar exam twice and is not hopeful of passing it a third time to become a lawyer. The eldest daughter is mute and married to an abusive husband. The younger daughter tries to pose as a rich university student to move up in life. The youngest son has a penchant for petty theft.

A truck driver arrives in Seoul to receive his dead sister's ashes. While there, he discovers the death may not have been an accident after all, and has something to do with international drug smuggling.

Yeon-shil is the lover of crime boss Dong-il. She pays off one of the boss's henchmen, Man-ho, with whom she once had an affair; Man-ho is an opium addict, and he has been blackmailing Yeon-shil by threatening to disclose their past relations.

Li Yung-Chieh and his adopted sister Li Mei-Ling deal with the return of his criminal past and her obsessed childhood friend in this Shaw Brothers film shot in South Korea with a mostly South Korean cast and crew.