This is a film so fraught with Chinese cultural values that most non-Chinese may have a hard time understanding the motivation of the main character, an unmarried young miss who goes to the capital to seek a living and encounters various types of mistreatment. The woman is from the Mount Huang area, one of the most beautiful scenic spots in all of China, so when her misadventures stack up, it is not that unusual that she opts for returning home. Many viewers would choose Mount Huang over Beijing any day. The woman is first treated like dirt by the mother and daughter in an upper-class family and has similar episodes when she is unjustly fired and goes to work for others. Put-upon and denigrated, she has some redemption in one vignette, but not enough to make her stay in the city.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi