Holding a grudge against him for botching the Axe fraternity's drug trade and claiming their territory, the Axe leaders start planning his assassination. Hiroichi has no choice but to leave, after accomplishing nothing.Īngered by Long Qi's rejection, Hiroichi goes to see the leaders of the Axe fraternity, to whom he also proposes an alliance, this time, to kill Long Qi. Hiroichi asks why Long Qi stole his shipment of opium, at which he replies that it felt good and he wanted to do it for no reason - just like the massacre of the Northern Chinese provinces during the Japanese invasion of China. He then laughs at Hiroichi's propositions and translates them as bribing him, who is in the way of Japanese control over Shanghai, so that he can betray his own country. Long Qi sees through his cover, however, and asks Hiroichi about his real intentions. He first approaches Long Qi, and proposes to form an alliance, which he claims is for their mutual benefit in trade, but in actuality is a stepping stone for Japanese domination in Shanghai. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Japanese chamber of commerce, Hashimoto Hiroichi, tries to gain Japanese influence in Shanghai. Long Qi persuades Ma to join him to fight against the Axe fraternity but is refused by Ma. Eventually both youths become good friends, and bond.

Ma doesn't wish to be a criminal, but uses his connection with Long Qi to snag honest jobs for himself and his friends. Soon, Long Qi offers to be Ma's benefactor. Ma won the fight but instead of taking it and selling it out, he burnt the Opium right in front of Long Qi and Long Qi is impressed by Ma's stalwart character and martial arts skills. Ma righteously challenges Long Qi over his criminal activities at the pier with a duration of a cigarette in which if Ma won, he could have the entire truckloads of Opium for himself. Inspector Wang of the police department tells the Japanese and the Axe federation that the opium cannot be returned to them, making their relationship on edge.īoth youths possess insanely good martial arts skills. The police come and arrest the gangsters, and seize the opium. Ma fights with him and his hooligans, and beats them all up. The gangster replies by saying it was not just worth one - it was worth more than the whole village combined. Later on, Ma takes the opium and returns it to the gangster, while questioning if that amount of opium was worth a person's life. He threatens to kill a young girl, and is about to cut her head off when Master Tie and Ma beat up the gangster and his men, keeping the village safe. That night, the gangster who hired Ma comes to the village to find the package of opium. Ma tells him to return the package, but he doesn't do so. He tells Ma that one small package of opium could sell six to seven hundred silver dollars, an enormous sum, but Ma is only interested in making honest money. The gangster agrees, and Ma wins, earning three people jobs for eighty cents a day.īack at the village, Ma is pressured by an acquaintance to sell a package of opium, that he mistakenly brings home instead of a package of imported Japanese tea. He says that if Ma can last one minute against him, he would hire him Ma gives a counter-offer of three minutes, but if he lasts, the gangster must hire two of his friends as well. Finally, a local gangster comes and challenges Ma to an arm-wrestle. He arm-wrestles everyone and wins easily, proving his extreme strength. Ma Yongzhen tries to find a job at the pier.

Long Qi beats the rival gang leader to death, and sends another back with a message: that the club, now named Paradise Night Club, would mark the border of his and the Axe fraternity's territory, further reducing their land holdings. There, he sees rising gang boss Long Qi ( Andy On), whose ruthlessness and powerful martial arts skills have put the four gang leaders of Shanghai's reigning Axe fraternity on notice and pushed their territory from four even parts of Shanghai to just only half of it under the Axe fraternity and half under his own reign. To celebrate his arrival, Niu brings Ma to the Peony night club, owned by a major gang leader and one of the four leaders of a faction called the Axe fraternity. There he meets a man from his hometown, Niu Sanguang, who asks the village leader, Master Tie, to feed and give housing to Ma, because he feels an obligation to take care of him. Possessing unique super strength and martial arts skills since childhood, Ma Yongzhen ( Philip Ng) travels from his hometown to Shanghai to seek a livelihood. ( November 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. This section's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed.

Directed by wong jing