Upon their invasion of Taiwan in 1874, the Japanese team up with a sinister tong to hold a martial arts tournament in a plot to root out and assassinate the region's top resistance fighters, thereby breaking the spirit of Chinese patriotism. Two local kung-fu masters prove more than a match for the invaders.
Down on his luck, our unlikely hero is trying to save enough money to afford to be trained in kung fu. He joins a group of misfits in hopes of earning the money by performing for crowds in the street. However, he keeps running into trouble and a mysterious kung fu master. Will he be able to overcome the challenges that lie in front of him? Or will he die trying?
The complicated story involves the military conquest of a peaceful island-nation by an evil despot and his sorcerer ally. His victory leaves the island's three heroic protectors dead, but, their young children are hidden away to grow to adulthood with different identities, unaware of their heritage, in hope that, in time, they might challenge and defeat the evil ruler. The charming Polly Kuan stars as one of these children who has been adopted by the conquerer himself, initially as an insult to the defeated hero, later as his protégé.
When a dying millionaire (Kang Ding) offers a huge financial reward to find his missing granddaughter, the news catches attention of several people: a wandering guitarist A-Wen (Wen Xia) and his sidekick Xiao Wang, as well as two street performers (Tuo Xian and Qiu Wangshe).