A tragic silent-film romance, in which the handsome landlady's son King The-en(Raymond King / Yan Jin) falls in love with Miss Lim (Lily Yuen / Lingyu Ruan) the beautiful daughter of a brave tenant farmer. The mother spurns Lim, sending her home when she visits the town, but The-en instead takes her to his apartment, where she stays, happily, until her father comes to take her home to her mother's deathbed. Lim's father and The-en's mother quarrelthey're both proudbut it turns out badly for the girl's family. The mother dies, the family has to move, the father is blinded defending the Kings' cattle from thieves even after he's been fired. Meanwhile Mrs. King prevents Theen from going to Lim. He's more than a little pusillanimous, really, though the parent-child bond is incredibly strong in Confucian China. He fails to break free until Lim, racked by poverty, lies dying. He takes their child and swears to live for her. Throughout the story there's a regular motif of peach blossoms: Lim's parents plant a peach tree at her birth; peach petals and tears have the same consistency; the sight of a blossoming tree prevents Lim from prostituting herself. The settings are traditional, as are the costumes, but with some westernizing. The-en has a western haircut, some of the women wear wristwatches, and there's a market scene in which the crowds wear Chinese clothes and western hats. The film is wonderful as a source for pre-revolutionary China, though the pastoral scenes are mostly pretty much idealized. And Lingyu Ruan is not only very beautiful, but she has an extraordinarily expressive face, especially when she's happy, when she looks a little like 21st-century model Vivian Hsu. She's the best thing this movie has to offer.