Comparing with the famous film adaptation of Thunderstorm in 1957, which starred superstar Bruce Lee, this 1984 adaptation directed by Sun Daolin preserves stronger dramatic tension by strictly adhering to the playwright's preference for a centralised setting and actions except for having the first and the last scenes of the original play deleted.

The story revolves around the happenings on an oppressive summer night at the Zhou Mansion. As an inevitable corollary of the long-running feud between the Zhous and the Lus, hypocrisy of the father Zhou Puyuan and his elder son Zhou Ping is exposed to the public eye. Secrets from the past to the present are revealed one by one. Cruel and ostentatious, Zhou Puyuan is an obdurate defender of the dying-out patriarchal system whereas Zhou Ping, fails to stand up to his father's oppression, leaving yet again the karmic debt unsettled, perhaps to be settled by his second son Lu Dahai who is deemed to be 'a newborn force' by the playwright himself.

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