Li Zhihua, a physician practicing in rural Henan province during the Mao era, gains great fame when his inexpensive herbal remedy cures a plague of poliomyelitis. But his medical skills, cannot protect his family from the political chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Nor are they enough to treat the flood of impoverished patients at his doorstep.

In 9th century China, a corrupt government wages war against a rebel army called the Flying Daggers. A romantic warrior breaks a beautiful rebel out of prison to help her rejoin her fellows, but things are not what they seem.