Scenes 1 to 10

This scene shows us the disastrous state of things and the cruelty of the Manchu regime in late-Qing times; it is a very dark scene. The comment states "modern Chinese history makes me feel cry".

A Chinese worker dies on a foreign ship; the foreigners harshly order all the workers to strip off their clothes to disinfect them all.
(This, again is a very dark scene; here we can see the miserable fate foreigners bring to the Chinese people. [According to the screenplay, the disinfectant is pink, which is supposed to symbolise "blood and tears of the Chinese people", but the filmed scene is too dark to distinguish colours well. The "foreigners" are not precisely specified; the screenplay just mentions "foreigners" who talk English. Interestingly – considering the pro-Japanese stance of the film – this is during the first Sino-Japanese War which is not mentioned here at all, and later on appears only as a positive stimulus to awaken the Chinese!])

Sun Yat-sen, Charlie Soong, Lu Haodong 陸皓東 and two non specified youths talk about China's crisis and the idea of violently overthrowing the Manchus. The two- and four-year-old daughters of Charlie Soong, Ailing and Qingling, listen.
(In the beginning of the scene there are shown several more or less "revolutionary" newspapers and magazines, among them the liberal „Dongfangzazhi (東方雜誌) which actually was published for the first time only in 1904! Note that the third Soong daughter Meiling – later wife of Chiang Kai-shek – is never introduced in the film, but only the first two who both served as secretaries to Sun).

Sun Yat-sen, Lu Haodong and others secretly found the "Revive China Society" (興中會) in Hawaii. Lu Haodong takes an oath on the bible.
(The oath on the bible is one of the few small hints at Christianity in this movie).

Lu Haodong introduces a draft of the revolutionaries’ flag to Sun Yat-sen, while talking about their plan for an uprising; the flag shows a white sun on a blue sky. Sun is full of optimism saying he believes to be born for a new China. Lu Haodong responds that he is ready to die for a new China (foreshadowing his "martyrdom").

Qing troops are already prepared to counter the uprising. Lu Haodong wants to stop a revolutionary ship from coming close to the coast, as the uprising actually had to be called off. The Qing troops fire at the revolutionaries' ship and there is a short fight. Lu dies as a martyr.

Sun Yat-sen is looking for the fellow revolutionary Zheng Shiliang 鄭士良 at the house of his Japanese friend Miyazaki Torazô 宮崎寅蔵; Miyazaki and Sun have dinner and talk about a new uprising and about determining a new military base. After dinner Sun and Miyazaki go to Zheng Shiliang’s room and find him sleeping with a Japanese girl.
(This is one of the very few hints at sex in this movie and – notably – between a Chinese male revolutionary and a Japanese girl).

Sun Yat-sen, Miyazaki and Zheng Shiliang light-heartedly walk and chat on a quiet street.

In the presence of Japanese friends like Inukai Ki 犬養毅 and Tôyama Mitsuru 頭山満, Sun Yat-sen delivers a speech; he criticises the reformers of 1898 (who now have fled to Japan, too, but continue to cling to the supportive Manchu emperor against the "conservatives" at the court) because their policy failed and because they are opposed to the idea of a republic. For Sun, the time for another uprising has come, and he wants to send Zheng Shiliang to Huizhou to set the rebellion in motion. Later, when Sun is invited to have a drink, he refuses the offer, but Zheng is willing to drink in Sun's place (foreshadowing his future fate as "martyr" in Sun's place). Then Zheng begins to cry and says he also wants to die like Lu Haodong on the battlefield or on the scaffold. Sun is moved to tears.

Revolutionary troops with red turbans and red belts attack; the much more numerous Qing troops are shown. The Red Turbans continue to fight bravely and Zheng Shiliang commands the attacking revolutionaries; we see many explosions; Qing troops surround the Red Turbans, dead bodies are everywhere and the revolutionaries finally suffer a defeat. Zheng Shiliang and a "Japanese friend of the Revolution" (named Yamada Yoshimasa 山田良政, he never appeared before) die.