The Price of Peace

Outline

The plot is divided into seven parts, each focusing on distinct themes and events.

Synopsis

On 7 July 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident sparks off the Second Sino-Japanese War as the Empire of Japan launches a full invasion on the Republic of China. Dida Cheng, a deserter from the Chinese National Revolutionary Army, flees to Malaya, where he meets Cuicui, a Chinese opera actress, and Hideko, a Japanese woman. The three of them are drawn into a complex love triangle. Xie Guomin, an anti-Japanese activist, and Zhou Wenlong, the asthmatic son of a tailor shop owner, both fall in love with the porridge vendor Wang Qiumei. After Wang is publicly humiliated by an evil businessman, she is saved by Zhou and decides to marry him. However, she is already secretly pregnant with Xie's child. Their relationships become very strained.

After the Japanese occupied Singapore in 1942, they initiate the Sook Ching Massacre in which thousands of Chinese deemed to be anti-Japanese activists are rounded up, persecuted and executed. Xie Guomin is arrested by the Kempeitai and he becomes a hanjian and informer after succumbing to the enemy under torture. On the other hand, Dida Cheng becomes a resistance fighter and an ally of Force 136, and he continues to fight the Japanese invaders to liberate Singapore.

Historical figures such as the war heroes Lim Bo Seng, Elizabeth Choy and Sybil Kathigasu, the philanthropist Tan Kah Kee, as well as notorious Japanese military figures such as Ishibe Toshiro and Yoshimura Ekio, are also featured as semi-fictional characters in the drama.