Wu Yonggang made his directorial debut at Lianhua Film Company with The Goddess — or Shen nu, which colloquially denotes a prostitute. In this tragic tale of shame and maternal sacrifice, Chinese cinema superstar Ruan Lingyu portrays a young mother forced into prostitution to support her son and provide him with an education. The sympathetic depiction of a streetwalker against the background of a predatory city makes this film surprisingly modern. Revealing the degradation of poverty and the exploitation of poor women, The Goddess criticises the feudal foundations of modern China. Ruan Lingyu brings great humanity to her role. Through emotionally powerful but very naturalistic acting for the time, she elevates the social outcast to the status of heroine.

In a village near Shanghai a poor fisherman's wife struggles with her twins, a son, Hou, and a daughter, Mao. After her husband's death, she has become the wet nurse of He Ziying, son of the owner of many fishing boats. Ziying becomes friend and playmate to the twins. When the twins grow up they become fishermen like their father, while Ziying travels abroad to study new techniques that will modernize his father's (later his own) fishing company. As the poor fishermen cannot compete against He's industrialized form of organization, the twins emigrate to Shanghai with their mother and make their living singing songs on the street.