Chen Zhen, a Chinese engineering student in Kyoto, who braves the insults and abuse of his own Japanse fellow students for his local love Mitsuko Yamada, daughter of the director, returns in 1937 to his indigenous Shangai, under Japanse protectorate -actually military job - after studying the death of his kung-fu master Hou Ting-An at a fight against the Western winner Ryuichi Akutagawa.