Dongguan's Mad Wolf, 2000

In the height of summer in the year 2000, eighteen-year-old Lin Ran returns to Dongguan carrying all the grievances of his past life.

At the station, a mysterious old man gives him a yellowed boxing manual: the true teachings of Bajiquan, an introduction to the art of killing.

In his past life, he spent his youth on an assembly line, lost a finger, and returned home to live an obscure, ordinary life.

In this life, he rules Houjie with his fists. Starting out as a low-level enforcer at the Huangchao Nightclub, he fights in underground matches, crushes gangs, and takes over territory, carving out a path to power amid neon lights and bloodshed.

Hong Kong-backed gangs want to use him as a weapon, local toughs see him as a thorn in their side, and powerful men on the right side of the law pull strings behind the scenes.

Lin Ran rises over the corpses of his enemies, fighting his way from Dongguan to Shenzhen and across Guangdong Province to Hong Kong.

Beautiful women surround him: a cool, captivating nightclub singer, a wealthy heiress from Hong Kong Island, a bold and capable policewoman... In this world where every day is a brush with death, he leaves behind a handful of legends.

Until one day, he stands at the pinnacle, with the entire Asian underworld at his feet.