Eve Tozer hires Patrick O'Malley, a washed-up aviator, and races against a deadline in a desperate attempt to meet the ransom demands of the men who have kidnapped her industrialist father in China.

Liu Jin-xi is a village craftsman whose quiet life is irrevocably shattered by the arrival of two notorious gangsters in the local general store. When Liu single-handedly saves the shopkeeper's life, he comes under investigation by detective Xu Bai-jiu. Convinced that Liu's martial arts mastery belies a hidden history of training by one of the region's vicious clans, Xu doggedly pursues the shy hero-and draws the attention of China's criminal underworld...

In Peking in 1902, an Englishman named Wallace (Jared Harris) arrives with a hand-cranked projector and a box of silent movies. Eventually, he overcomes tradition to build an audience for the new art form, films the people of China, and even shows his magic to the Empress. Most importantly, he makes a local disciple, the ambitious young technophile photographer Liu Jinglun (Xia Yu), who becomes entranced by the new invention. Liu's initial fascination...