The story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill's "secret army": Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.

During World War II a secret agent must seduce, then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai. Her mission becomes clouded when she finds herself falling in love with the man she is assigned to kill.

Captain John Yossarian, a World War II bombardier, is stationed on the island of Pianosa. He is an individualist who seeks to protect his own life by fleeing to the hospital, since a "catch-22" in the Air Force regulations prevents him from being grounded for illness or obtaining a leave.

During the harrows of WWII, Jo, a young shepherd along with the help of the widow Horcada, helps to smuggle Jewish children across the border from southern France into Spain.

Mina, a young college student, has her life ripped away after her family is killed. When she finds out their murder was part of a botched kidnapping to return her to her real father—a terrorist in the middle east.

The film is set in 1949, as the members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China prepare to establish a new Chinese state, the People's Republic of China.