In mid-1960s, groups of American paratroopers arrive at a Hmong village near the Vietnam-Laos border. Among the troops are former villagers who collaborated with the French; having returned home , they seek to win over the village’s support.
To pay off her family’s debts, Mị is forced to marry the son of her Hmong village’s ruthless patriarch. When the constant abuse and beatings become unbearable for the young girl, she plans to escape with a stranger held captive by her husband.
Hoài and Vận fall in love during the war against the French. Vận fought as a guerrilla and Vận ferried guerrillas across the river. When peace comes, Vietnam is divided in two across the Bến Hải River, leaving them separated.
Hoa is a young engineer and computer specialist who arranges the database of an institution. She is hardworking, yet her dedication goes unnoticed, and her boss dismisses her work and expertise as “redundant”.
Upon meeting a young Vietnamese soldier during his brief stay in the Lao mountains, a woman begins recalling to her daughter episodes of her life ever since she had to leave Northwest Vietnam in 1952, including her fateful encounter with a Lao mother.
Vietnamese guerrillas move into a village adjoining a French/US airstrip and recruit locals to help them bring it down.
A general who devoted his life to the communist cause, retires, only to find that his household is in disarray, his grown children money-grubbing, and Vietnamese society far from the rosy picture of equality he'd imagined he'd helped make it.
In early 20th century, a Vietnamese aristocratic socialite falls in love with a poor scholar though her father, a powerful governor, is determined to separate them, even with extreme measures.
An old man chances upon a ceramic teapot while working as a gravedigger. Fervently believing that the teapot is a valuable piece of antique, he risks life and death to protect it against the concern of his family.
Two classmates volunteer to work in logistics across the forests of Trường Sơn mountains.
After his brother goes off to serve in the war young Phuoc feels he would also be better serving his country holding a gun, not a rake.