It starts off well enough with some nice build-up in a sprawling deserted farm town (a nice backlot on a Taiwan location) as various motley characters show up at the town's only open establishment, a tavern/inn, with some evil doings in mind. When advance men for the title bandits show up to lay the groundwork for a raid, they round up all available hostages but one. That one is the film's lone hero (Chang Yi), whose motivation is simply stated—he's there to check up on family—but no one believes him. At the thirty-minute mark, he launches into an eight-minute battle with the two bandit chieftains, hand-to-hand with one (Sammo Hung) and swordplay with the other (an actor I didn't recognize). It's a well-staged brawl and it spreads all over the empty town.

The plot has to do with a reign of terror conducted by a mysterious killer dubbed "Poison Dart," who is hitting all kinds of prominent people with poison darts.

Wan Jialiang, a factory worker, and Lu Xiuzhen fall in love and live together. Hou Liang is supported by Dong Yaqin, his cousin, and their lives improve. Desperate to get rid of Jane, who is pregnant, Jialiang plans to make her fall into the sea and die.

When a terrible kung fu master seeks various martial arts manuals from around China to make himself even more evil, he must come to blows with a Wu Tang student sent to stop him.

Love knows no limits in the grand period romance, Lady Jade Locket. A young fighter inadvertently falls for the spirit of a beautiful woman, who died years earlier avenging her own father's murder. The beautiful ghost is in fact the sister of his fiancee. Experienced as an actor in many such romances, director Yen Chuan keeps the tone perfect. Plus, with period specialist Li Li-hua in the lead and the attractive and acclaimed Li Ching playing the ghost girl, he really can do no wrong.