Sergeant Tong is wracked with guilt after he unwittingly kills a young girl whilst capuring a criminal named Cheung. When the girl's sister is later kidnapped in a ploy to get Cheung released, Sergeant Tong vows to find and rescue her before she comes to harm.

Set in China during the Warlords Period of the1920s, notorious bandit chief Zhang descends upon a remote provincial town posing as its new mayor, an identity that he had hijacked from Old Tang, himself a small-time imposter. Hell-bent on making a fast buck, Zhang soon meets his match in the tyrannical local gentry Huang as a deadly battle of wit and brutality ensues.