Set in the revolutionary years of China in the 1930s, Withered in the Wind centres on a warlord family which reveals the fundamental conflicts of the feudal age: nationalism, freedom of love and the clash of western thoughts and the old traditions.
Tuan Yuk Ting(Cheung Siu Fai) is the adopted son of the warlord Tuan Yat Fu. Ting's upbringing in a feudal family forced him to end his love with the prostitute, Fork Hung Chui (Tse Ning). Later, Tuan fell in love affair a teacher Hon Sheung (Kitty Lai) but met his father's opposition again . He also felt despair that the love affair between his younger brother and the house-maid Ping Yee (Mo Shun Kwan) failed.
Later Ting became friend of a revolutionary, Tse Tin San whom Ting found out that he was his twin brother. Ting was in a great dilemma. He could either inherit the warlord family or to side with Tin San to fight against his father. Painfully he had to take his stand.