Tony Leung Chiu-Wai
In the years after the Revolution in which the Qing Dynasty in China is overthrown and the Republic is established, China is broken up into fiefdoms held by warlords, who are busy fighting each other. A butler, Liu Kunshan (Wu Gang), uses magic to scare convicts into joining the army of warlord Lei Bully (Lau Ching-wan). Lei Bully has six wives and also imprisons a girl, Liu Yin (Zhou Xun), and wants her to be his seventh wife willingly. A group of local revolutionaries want to kidnap Lei and bring back the republic. They team up with a magician, Chang Hsien (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), to entice Lei to a magic show and kidnap him during the show. It is revealed that Chang and Liu Yin had been ex-lovers and Chang is an apprentice of Liu's father, a magician, Liu Wanyao. Chang discovers that his former master was imprisoned by Liu Kunshan as he had wanted to extract a magic secret from Liu Wanyao.