The Long boys are playful and often bicker and fight with the daughters of the Bao family who live just across the river and practice Wudangquan.

The mischievous Sanlong ("Third Dragon", Jet Li), the oldest of the Long children, likes to tease the third sister of the Bao family, Sanfeng ("Third Phoenix", Huang Qiuyan) who is a tomboy in her late teens and who has a nasty temper.

Meanwhile, the Long family are saving up in order to pay the bride price - ten oxen - so that Tianlong can marry the eldest Bao girl, Taifeng.

Meanwhile, the vicious bandits who orphaned the eight Long boys have been training in secret for ten years to revenge the Shaolin counter-attack which injured them when they looted the village.

A cross-eyed member of the bandits (Sun Jian-kui) poses as a Taoist soothsayer to infiltrate the Baos to learn their martial arts and abduct their daughters.

The Long family, he claims, has been throwing off the yin and yang balance for the Bao, making it impossible for the wife to bear a male heir.

Yilong is in love with Yifeng (Ding Lan), the second daughter, and to fulfill the couple, Sanlong and Sanfeng help the two elope.