Jackie Chan stars as the young warrior Hsu Yiu Fong. Hsu has been entrusted with the book of the “Art of the Snake and Crane,” after the mysterious disappearance of the eight Shaolin Masters who had written it. He must fight off numerous clans who are all attempting to steal the book from him, to find out the true reason for the disappearance of the Shaolin Masters.

A one-armed martial arts master is being stalked by an Imperial assassin, the master of two fighters (the Tibetan Lamas) who were killed in the previous film. When the One-Armed Boxer is invited to attend a martial arts tournament, his efforts to lay low are unsuccessful, and the assassin soon tracks him down with the help of his three subordinates competing in the tournament: a Thai boxer, a yoga master, and a kobojutsu user.