16세의 자스민은 수출용 청바지 공장에서 재단사로 일하고 있다. 영화는 가난을 벗어나기 위해 어린 나이에도 불구하고 집을 떠나왔지만 저임금과 중노동에 시달릴 수밖에 없는 중국 노동자들의 현실을 여과 없이 꼼꼼히 들추어내고 있다.Sixteen-year-old Jasmine is a thread-cutter at the Lifeng Factory, one of dozens of denim manufacturers in Shaxi, South China. As she puts it, she makes the big and fat jeans we wear. Like her new friends at the factory - Liping, a seamstress, and Orchid, a zipper installer - Jasmine is one of hundreds of millions of people, mostly young women, who make up the largest pool of cheap labour in the world. Excited to be helping her family when she gets the job, Jasmine sets out from the farm to the factory, knowing little about the labour conditions in Shaxi. Soon she is working gruelling sixteen-hour days for scant wages. Disco-dancing and modelling lessons from Orchid and midnight trips downtown to buy energy tea with Liping provide Jasmine with camaraderie and some relief from the onerous production cycle and harsh working conditions. In the U.S. and Canada, they can't live without denim, says Mr. Lam, the factory owner. That is our great advantage. The Western buyers he meets care about one thing: impossibly low costs. A factory that paid minimum wage and allowed its workers sufficient rest would price itself out of competition. Trapped by these oppressive forces, the resourceful Jasmine and her feisty friends endure with dreams of better jobs or operating businesses of their own.