In the final years of the Republic of China, Gao Shiwei and Lin Hongying are separated by the Japanese invasion of China. The husband resolutely joins the army to resist the Japanese, then retreats with the troops to Taiwan, spending the rest of his life adrift and longing for home. His wife remains alone in their homeland, struggling to raise their child amid the chaos and steadfastly waiting for his return. For forty years, they gaze across the strait as the tides of history repeatedly shatter their hopes of reunion. At last, as relations between the two sides thaw, the white-haired man finally returns and embraces the wife who has waited for him all her life in front of their old home. This is a bittersweet story of separation and waiting, of history and the individual.
