Plot

Five Shaolin disciples barely escape from the destruction of the Shaolin Temple. Now, each have to train in their own fighting styles in order to stand-up against the Qing's top martial artists, and avenge their fallen comrades.

The story is simple (Shaolin vs. Manchu traitors), but the effect was anything but, as the screen's most charismatic action actors team with a legendary director and revered choreographers (Liu Chia-liang and brother Liu Chia-yung) for scenes of unparalleled power.—Celestial Pictures

Hu Te escapes the burning Shaolin temple after the Qing soldiers destroyed it in Shaolin Temple. The group of 5 decide to develop secret codes to identify fellow patriots, enlist those patriots and eventually meet up again to escape to the south away from the Qings, and also identify the traitor who sold out Shaolin temple. Ma Fu Yi (the traitor, played by Wang Lung Wei), joins the Qing top fighters to eliminate the rebels but is exposed by Ma Chao-Tsing who gets captured by Ma Fu Yi. Hu meets up with a group of Shaolin men secretly posing as bandits to rescue Ma as their leader is killed in the process, thus the bandits join the rest of the Shaolin patriots.

Suffering continuous defeats at the hands of the Qing kung fu experts, the 5 Shaolin patriots return to the temple ruins to perfect their kung fu and take revenge for their destroyed temple and dead comrades.