Num edifício de apartamentos em Xangai, Hou, um oficial corrupto do Kuomintang, o partido no poder na China em meio ao caos do fim da Segunda Guerra Mundial, ocupa o prédio, avisa que irá vendê-lo e manda todos os inquilinos saírem.
Wang, a bankrupt farmer joins his cousin, Wu, in Shanghai, but finds that he is poor too. One day, Wu stops a woman - Zhang, a drug runner - from being run down by a car, and is hospitalized. During his recovery, Wu slims down due to the amount of drugs he is prescribed, which inspires him to create and sell a weight loss medicine.
During the war, a small town butcher store, drug dealer Li Buyun, rogue Liu Tianyuan, soldier gangster Pan Qishan and a group of villains on the orders of the Japanese commander Yamamoto, secretly planning to set up a traitor organization to maintain the Association. They are fighting for oil and water, and Yamamoto has to send police chief Yang Kecheng to strengthen control, but Yang is an uncompromising straw man. Liu Tianyuan and Pan Qishan get a batch of arms to sell to a buyer outside the city, but the news is learned by Li Buyun, and the two sides fight for profit. When Pan Qishan came to report that the buyer of the arms was a guerrilla group. The gunfire is so loud that the villains hide in the basement, only to be blown up by the guerrillas with the grenades they are selling.
