Life has not been kind to drinking buddies Sam, Fai, and Mok as they struggle to make ends meet, until one stormy evening a mysterious old man appears before them in a bar with a 'get rich quick' scheme: an ancient treasure is buried under a high-security government building.
Hui Man Keung is washed up on a beach near Shanghai. He is taken in by Ding Lik, a kindly beggar who is in love with Fung Ching Ching, the daughter of a prominent gangster. It isn't long before Ding Lik rises through the underworld ranks to become one of the city's most powerful gangsters.
A poet named Butterfly and her friend Kuen visit a stranger's mansion to return some possessions that were unintentionally taken. At the house, they stumbled upon an illegal weapons trade that ultimately went bad. To evade the police from interrogations, the two innocent witnesses wiped away their fingerprints and left a note that stated that the crimes were committed by "The Black Rose," who is known to be a fictional hero in a 1965 movie. However, a recovered fingerprint caused Kuen to be the prime suspect, and the apprentices of the Black Rose, apparently a real hero whose legacy was portrayed in the 1965 movie, attempt to seek the truth in the matter by confronting Butterfly.
Hong Kong photo-journalist Lau and Vietnamese translator Yuen Hung become friends when Lau is arrested for a traffic accident. Yuen wants Lau to find out the whereabouts of her brother. Lau is later thrown into prison again due to being mistakenly as a demonstrator and sentenced to three years of hard labor. With help of Yuen, Lau and Yuen's brother escape to China but Yuen's brother is killed on the way. Lau flees to freedom. Yuen cannot go to China and Lau has to let her go...