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An Asian cop returns to Chicago to revenge his brother’s death, only to come up against a psycho threesome on a killing spree.
Cast into a violent and bloody world of murder, Hereward, a novice monk, must deliver the Holy Gospel of Lindisfarne – a book of great beauty and power – to the safety of the Iona monastery, while being pursued by a Viking death squad hell- bent on its capture. On his way to the monastery, he meets a fierce and skilled swordsman who answers his prayers and dedicates his life to protecting Hereward while he delivers the book. In the midst of their journey, they are confronted by Vikings ready to kill in order to get what they want, leaving Hereward and his protector at their mercy.
Poor young cobbler Wu Di lives with his mother and is crazy about martial-arts picture books. One day he repairs the shoe of wandering swordswoman Yuelou and later helps save her in a fight with wanted criminal Tian Baguang, even though he has no martial-arts training. She tells him she owes him a life and can be found on Qin Mountain if he ever needs her. Yuelou is actually a princess who was due to marry the emperor but ran away after setting fire to her palace quarters. In love, Wu Di sets out to find her, fighting river pirate Dugu and his sidekick on the way, and also meeting a hermit Buddhist monk who offers to take him on as a pupil. Yuelou plans to attend a martial arts tournament to establish her name, little knowing that the emperor’s chief eunuch Cheng has arranged for her to be secretly protected by Penal Bureau officer Yang Guo and to win the tournament, so the emperor can award her the prize and persuade her to reconsider marriage.
The film’s story centers on Musashi Miyamoto, one of the most famous swordsmen in Japanese history. He pioneered the Hyouhou Niten Ichi-ryuu style of two-sword fighting and wrote “The Book of Five Rings,” a book that has been compared to Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” for its insight on tactics and strategy.
The Comte de Gonzague schemes against his cousin, the Duc de Nevers, even though he is the Duke’s heir and will inherit his estates. The Count has kept secret the existence of the Duke’s bastard, recently born. When the Duke learns of his child, he journeys to wed the mother, a baron’s daughter, in her father’s isolated chateau. The occupants of the castle are surprised and murdered by the Count and his men. The only ones to escape are the Duke’s friend, the skilled swordsman Lagardère, and the infant, a girl, now the rightful heiress to the Duke’s vast fortune. The Count believes the pair to have drowned, when in fact they have been concealed by a travelling troupe of Italian players. Twenty years pass. The Count has discovered that the two survive and seeks to have them slain. But Lagardère gains the confidence of the Count, and employment as his bookkeeper, through his clever disguise as a hunch-back…