In the directors' own words, Chang is a "melodrama with man, the jungle, and wild animals as its cast." Kru, the farmer depicted in the film, battles leopards, tigers, and even a herd of elephants, all of which pose a constant threat to his livelihood. As filmmakers, Cooper and Schoedsack attempted to capture real life with their cameras, though they often re-staged events that had not been captured adequately on film. The danger was real to all the people and animals involved. Tigers, leopards, and bears are slaughtered on camera, while the film's climax shows Kru's house being demolished by a stampeding elephant.
Billy Randalph (Coogan) who is a young bugler on a frontier cavalry post in the mid-1870s, whose stepmother Alice Tremayne (Windsor) attempts to replace his real mother who only lives in his memory.
Dans les Andes argentines, l'intervention de la Sainte Vierge permet à une jeune fille tombée d'une falaise d'échapper à la mort. À l'endroit même de l'apparition est érigé un sanctuaire, autour duquel se construit la ville du miracle. Devenue adulte, la miraculée continue à veiller sur le site, mais dans le même temps, un nommé Ruiz tente de faire main basse sur la ville et ses richesses. Mais ses plans sont contrecarrés par l'arrivée d'un aventurier surnommé Le Gaucho, qui s'amourache d'une jeune femme connue comme La fille de la montagne ...
The film is ″(a) tale of chivalry in modern times, involving a Glasgow grocer and a Russian princess imprisoned in a deserted castle″ according to the British Film Institute.