Set in the countryside of Northeast China, Debt of Love follows Zhu Si, a carpenter who is sincerely in love with Daman but is forced by circumstance to move in with the ailing Jiang Qi's family as a live-in son-in-law. He works tirelessly to hold this troubled family together, and develops complicated feelings for Sister-in-Law Qi. Bound by the moral constraints of an age of poverty, affection and harsh reality pull against each other, giving rise to a love-hate entanglement marked by helplessness and a lack of choice.
