A folk legend of the Miao people is performed as a dance drama by the Kueichow Song and Dance En­semble. The story tells how the beautiful Manlo is deeply in love with the young hunter Adoya, but the evil landowner Heidayang is determined to possess her. He murders the young man with a poisoned arrow. Manlo avenges her beloved — she kills the landlord, then casts herself over a cliff.

The ballet contains some beautifully staged sequences: in one of them Manlo and Adoya pledge their love in a dance by the moonlit Ching-shui river; in another set on the pine-covered mountainside wreathed in mist, the young hunters and Manlo execute the Torch Dance showing their determination to fight against the tyrant. The film also includes such Miao folk dances as the Pipe-organ Dance, the Hunters' Bow and Arrow Dance, and the Wooden Drum and Copper Drum Dances. The music is in the distinctive Miao idiom.