政局腐败民不聊生的晚清末年，宋查理（姜文）凭借其在美国所获先进知识与孙中山（赵文瑄）合力，企图推翻满清。其后，宋查理留学美国的各具风情的三个女儿学成归国，老大宋霭龄（杨紫琼）下嫁商人孔祥熙（牛振华），老二宋庆龄（张曼玉）不顾父亲反对追随了革命者孙中山，老三宋美龄（邬君梅）则在先是革命者后是叛国者的蒋介石（吴兴国）的狂烈追求下成为其妇，三人的命运开始在动荡不安的政局中随着对其时的中国最重要的三个男人的命运沉浮。

大正时代革命家大杉荣和围绕他的2个女人…女权论家神近市子和革命家伊藤野枝.这3人的爱恨,最终在1616年神近杀死大杉的[日荫茶屋事件].之后研究现代事件的女大学生永子靠自己的想象.把事件展现给观众.于是大杉,做为神近做模特的正冈逸子和野枝出现了.不久2个故事就想白日梦似的在时空中交叉出现.

高中时年少懵懂的纯纯爱恋，经过长达十年的磨合，期间感情不断地变化，从心碎争执、失恋痛苦直到重新恋爱，不断重复纠缠在一起。这是属于一个只看着一个女人的「纯情男子」（金英光 饰），以及猜不透内心想法的「初恋女子」（朴宝英 饰）两人间的爱情故事，恋爱的酸甜苦辣即将展开……

The Deserted Archipelago was my first independently directed and produced film. The film won the Grand Prix at the Nyon International Film Festival and garnered considerable attention both overseas and in Japan. The film follows an extremely simple story of a plain boy who matures into manhood while constantly manipulated by nuns. But woven into this narrative are my own experiences and the history of postwar Japan as well as a series of fantasies. The result is a multifaceted and multilayered objet, the birth of a newly sur-realistic filmmaking. On August 15th, the day the war ended, I was in the third year of primary school. That day, when the reality that I had known turned completely upside down, I was saddled with the trauma of no longer being able to believe in anything. Searching here and there for some kind of spiritual salvation, I finally found the existentialism of Albert Camus. From there, I was able to build up my own kind of existentialism and this film is best understood as based in that “Kanai Katsu Existentialism.” The film was praised by European film scholars Max Tessier and Tony Rayns and was screened as part of “Eiga: 25 Years of Japanese Film,” a special program at the 1984 Edinburgh International Film Festival.